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Egypt

The Future Sound Of LondonISDNLimited Edition

Electronic Brain Violence 1994

Ever since first launching into this whole Terminal Vibration trip, I've wanted to touch down with ISDN. It's a strange, twisted record that seems to criss-cross the TV saga at so many points of intersection, with its off-kilter grooves clearly sourced in the warped avant funk of Episode V (What Time Is It?), the heavy atmospherics running parallel to the dubbed-out madness of Episode VI (Imperial Slates) and even its twisted beat matrix at a jagged interchange with the latest episode's (Edge Of No Control) descent into ragged abstract hip hop's shadowy precincts. Against all odds, at the midpoint of the 90s The Future Sound Of London — Brian Dougans and Gary Cobain — seemed to be channeling the ghosts of post punk past to augur bold new visions of the future.

In truth, it's not justISDN that merits discussion within the context of Terminal Vibration. I could talk about everything that led up to it's protracted gestation, from the duo's earliest pre-FSOL releases at the cusp of the 80s and 90s — records like Stakker Humanoid, Chile Of The Bass Generation and The Pulse EPs — to their to their debut album as The Future Sound Of London — 1991's Accelerator — a post-rave paradise of shimmering breakbeat techno that culminated in increasingly abstract records like Amorphous Androgynous's Tales Of Ephidrina and the sweeping sonic vistas of 1994's Lifeforms.

The Future Sound Of London

I could also talk about everything that came in ISDN's wake, from the dystopian sonic environments of Dead Cities, My Kingdom and the electroid, post-hip hop sonix of the We Have Explosive EP (featuring appearances from Leon Mar and Kurtis Mantronik) to their cosmic swan song with Papua New Guinea Translations and The Mello Hippo Disco Show, after which they shifted gears into prog-inflected psychedelia (a path they've continued to walk for nearly twenty years now).

However, this is the point of inflection upon which everything else hinges: ISDN is the moment when The Future Sound Of London turned their attention away from the lustrous sonic utopias of Cascade and Lifeforms to focus on the seedy underbelly of their self-authored world, apparently lurking beneath the surface all along, in the grimy back streets and dingy dives deep within the city. If Accelerator and the Earthbeat compilation might have soundtracked some prequel to William Gibson's Neuromancer, back when Case was still living large and his skills in high demand, then ISDN is the sound of the console cowboy down and out in Chiba City. This is where the cold machinery creeps in to inject its steely ugliness into the duo's sound, and things would never be the same...

The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel.1

The year was 1994 and The Future Sound Of London were on top of the world. Flush from their contract with Virgin Records, who leapt to sign them in light of their ubiquitous dancefloor anthem Papua New Guinea, they'd managed to upgrade their studio from the lean-and-mean outpost where they cut their swathe of uncompromising 8-bit cyberpunk missives — released under names like Mental Cube, Smart Systems and Indo Tribe — to a state-of-the-art multimedia laboratory, decked out with video-editing capabilities featured prominently alongside the synths and sequencers.

They'd just unveiled their second FSOL full-length, Lifeforms, a sprawling double-album to critical acclaim and impressive sales. The remaining question (from the label and the public both) was, When is the tour? To which the duo replied Never! with glee. Rather, their plan was to document a series of performances in the studio, transmitting live to various radio stations and venues via the recently implemented ISDN protocol across high speed lines with a combination of sonic and visual imagery.

Radio quickly evolved as an area where people were inclined to use their ears.2

These performances culminated in today's album (or albums, as ISDN came in two editions, released in quick succession). The first was the limited edition, enclosed in a jet-black gatefold sleeve with a Velcro clasp(!), while the second was the wide release version housed in a simple white sleeve. For the first 2/3 of their running time, both versions are largely similar, but they diverge significantly in the final stretch, featuring three tracks completely unique to each release. For today's purposes, I've chosen to focus on ISDN Black, since it's the version more explicitly tied to the Terminal Vibration phenomenon (although I'll touch on the White tracks along the way as well). And so it begins...

People hadn't lost the ability to conjure atmospheres...

You're immediately dropped into the chaotic atmosphere of some crowded club, faceless and nameless, synths drifting aimlessly like a memory of the 1980s. Could you leave the lights alone please, exclaims an agitated voice, Stop flashing the fucking lights!Just A Fuckin' Idiot kicks into gear with a beat like puffs of dirty smoke and a release of hazy atmosphere into the room like something's just crept up behind you. Bleeps chirp on the beat as the sound of a whirring machine seems to rewind the beat every couple bars.

Along with a pervasive sense of claustrophobia, the sound of machinery and buzzing electronics is the great constant running through the heart of ISDN, giving it definite industrial vibes a million miles away from the bucolic, wide open spaces of Lifeforms. To top it all off, halfway into Idiot a spooked atmosphere overwhelms the room with an eerie synthetic choir crying out in a spectral falsetto somewhere between Morricone's OST vocals and the sound of a theremin.

It was 3 in the morning we were knackered, the last of the shops had closed hours ago.

Then a phone rings, with a shout (and without warning) and a boom sounding the sort of siren synth Vangelis unveiled on the Blade Runner OST, smearing across the soundscape in a great descending arc. A snatch of dialogue from Aliens intones, Alright, let's see what we can see. Everybody on-line, looking good. The heavy, unfunky beat of The Far Out Son Of Lung And The Ramblings Of A Madman drops in on a rolling, clipped loop (seemingly reloading from scratch every bar) while fake-sounding, detuned guitar stabs (sounding like something from a cheap, sample-playing keyboard circa 1990) punch into the mix at irregular intervals. Electric Miles Davis trumpets weave through the track like a serpent while outer/inner space effects creep into every corner of the soundscape. It's a searing bad dream of a track, which was (perversely) the album's lone single.

Inevitably, it all dissolves into deep space sonix and the sounds of grinding machinery before releasing into the peaceful, gently rewinding atmosphere of Appendage. With synths pulsing beneath a gliding flute line and (what sound like) alien bird calls, it's a brief but welcome ambient respite after the intense opening gambit of Idiot and Madman. It lasts but for a moment, offering up a brief, lingering memory of Amorphous Androgynous' underwater calm before the tension comes back with a vengeance.

Then we submerged into 40 minutes of noizic — 50% Control 50% Chaos.

Slider cuts in without warning on a heavy slow-motion sci-fi big beat, rolling parallel to a flimsy metallic texture that echoes across the track, seeming to warp and bend in time to the rhythm. A grinding electronic loop sweeps in to take center stage, sounding like something wrenched from an old industrial record, before everything drops out to a wailing siren song and outer space noises soaring above it all like a drifting mirage. It's tracks like this that at the time had me thinking this was FSOL's trip hop album, with a warped vision of sleazy downbeat hip hop not so far removed from Depth Charge's contemporary output.

The beat changes up about 2/3 of the way through the track, slipping into an almost new jack swing robotic rhythm (albeit still played on that same ten ton drum kit), while sordid electronic squelches pulse into the darkness. This play of textures is even more so drawn from the trip hop playbook, leaving you wandering these sprawling catacombs in desperate search of a way out. At the last minute, it all drops out and you're unceremoniously jettisoned into a back alley interlude where a lonesome whistle duets with chirping cybernetic insects.

Millions of people being touched as remote units dotted and uncountable.

Then, the spaced-out sonix return once again, this time on a high tide on the sea of flesh, rolling in to bring you Smokin' Japanese Babe. A sultry slice of red light district downbeat jazz, it rides a languid rhythm carved out on shuffling brushed drums and woozy double bass, sounding very much like something from Maxinquaye's second side. Gently muted trumpets cry out lonesome in the night as a warped boogie synth puts in an unlikely spastik appearance toward the end.

It all goes spaced-out yet again, this time with the spooked sonix once more in full effect, before a loose electro rhythm shades into the mix alongside its requisite counterpart of whirring industrial machinery. You're Creeping Me Out conjures up images of claustrophobic films like Pi and Parallax View — films where paranoia practically takes the lead role — much like Photek's contemporary output circa Modus Operandi and The Hidden Camera EP. Eerie sounds seem to splash and echo in the darkness, while FSOL unfurl the sort of eldritch analogue synth figure that Boards Of Canada would later turn into a lifestyle.

It disintegrates into tones trailing off into the distance, birds seeming to return their electronic call, and suddenly you find yourself in an environment that wouldn't sound out of place on Lifeforms. However, you blink and it's but a fleeting memory echoing through the corridors of the city, and Eyes Pop - Skin Explodes - Everybody Dead soundtracks your current scenario. Ancient clockwork electronics fade in gently, sounding like harpsichords plucking out an elegy for the distant green worlds of Lifeforms, lost now for all time. A cascade of bleeps spill across the track and (what sounds like) uilleann pipes relay the melody one last time as it all sinks into the quicksand.

You know the way everyone's into weirdness right now?

It's My Mind That Works opens with a warped sample from the movie Repo Man (echoing the source of the previous track's title), before developing into a mournful piano piece foregrounded by industrial machinery and urban atmosphere. Suddenly, driving percussion creeps into the fray and a rude electronic synth arc blares into the darkness like one of those great MBV-esque synth flameouts from Hans Zimmer's score to Blade Runner 2049. It's so similar, in fact, that one wonders if Dougans and Cobain traveled to the present day and brought it back in time with them. After all, there's a reason they're called The Future Sound Of London.

Out of reverb into this lonely landscape of our own creation.

The piercing sounds of glass, as if played along the rim, announces Dirty Shadows (the title a great summation of this album's prevailing mood). Then, a creepy voice — first pitched up, then pitched down — repeats, come, fly the teeth of the wind... share my wings. Apparently, it's sampled from the sequel to The Exorcist. As if this album weren't spooky enough already! Thankfully, a gently shuffling rhythm breaks the silence and forms itself into another piece of swirling electronic jazz, this time recalling the drifting atmosphere of the sort of abstract jazz one might find on the ECM imprint. It's cinematic, like the Heat soundtrack, with plaintive pianos, Get Carter harpsichords and more of that ice cold machinery operating in the night.

Upon reflection, this seems like as good a prediction as any for the cosmic jazz stylings that seemed to emerge out of nowhere during the Papua New Guinea Translations project. All those allusions to Sun Ra and Alice Coltrane make perfect sense in light of tunes like Dirty Shadows and Smokin' Japanese Babe. This is a story that's told in even greater detail across the From The Archives series, which filled in the bits between the bits in what must be one of the more extensive bodies of unreleased work from the era (alongside the seemingly countless DATs left behind by Tupac Shakur).

Tired starts with more of that harpsichord — or is it mandolin? — before an industrial percussion loop tumbles into view. It all collapses into atmosphere, computer sounds and gentle waves of synth pulsing on the horizon. Against all odds, about halfway through it morphs into an idyllic piece of synth music, with rippling aquatic synths and the sort of pretty strings one might find in a Vangelis or mid-period Tangerine Dream OST. Finally, a flanged martial beat — like the one from Lifeforms' Vertical Pig — fades into view momentarily before being carried away on a solar wind.

Tracks fusing with vomiting samplers all held together by a stoical Yage.

Cryptic voices and a lone exotic flute herald the arrival of Egypt, a singular bit of odyshape electro built on ancient reconstructed rhythm boxes, drums that sound hollow and a pinched reed sound mirroring the cracking snare. Synths bathe the tune in drifting serenity while ethereal, distant voices chant toward the sky. You can just picture rolling vistas stretching out beneath a sun-drenched horizon, drunk with the deep reds and violets of twilight. Hieroglyphs reanimate themselves and begin moving through the city, picking up from where they left off as if the passing centuries had only been but a fleeting pause. A magical moment, and surely one of this record's finest.

With Egypt's reeds detuned and descending in rapid-fire as they recede into the distance, we reach the point at which the two editions of ISDN diverge. Are They Fightin' Us creeps in on another riverbed of tranquility, flutes and water sounds presaging a tentative rhythm built on wood bass and gentle percussion as a lone voice cries out in a distant scream. Like Dirty Shadows, it all seems to predict the cosmic jazz psychedelia of Translations (or even certain moments of The Isness). A more mechanical, industrialized beat takes the reigns for a spell before cycling onto a rolling breakbeat to carry the rhythm forward with even greater focus than before. Ultimately, the zero-gravity percussion returns to the fore on the returning high tide, wind chimes twinkling gently in the distance.

Everyone in the world is doing something without me.

A subtle bit of random electronic melody sneaks into the mix, the bug in the bassbin, and suddenly the warped post punk incantation of Hot Knives take us deep into left field. Riding chopped breaks and a clipped pan pipe figure — quite possibly the very same kit from Mental Cube's Chile Of The Bass Generation — it's an unexpected moment of skewed pop within this sea of atmosphere. There's even a heavily treated robotic vocal courtesy of Gary Cobain (if I'm not mistaken), marking it out as particularly unique in the FSOL canon (at least before the turn of the century rolls around). With muted horns and a warped chanting — drenched in atmosphere — contributing to its dense, murky mood, this is very much in the spirit of 23 Skidoo.

Indeed, more than any other, this tune really captures the mood of FSOL's BBC Radio 1 Essential Mix 2 (aka Fuct Up Soup), which featured 23 Skidoo alongside post punk stalwarts like A Certain Ratio, 400 Blows and the Cocteau Twins. Indeed, this is very reminiscent of A Certain Ratio's Kether Hot Knives Mix In Special (which featured prominently in the first leg of Fuct Up Soup). This tune is quintessentialTerminal Vibration.

Coming on like a fusion of 23 Skidoo's heavy atmospheric hijinks and Thomas Leer's Gaussian blurred new wave pop (with maybe even a dash of the Thompson Twins thrown in for good measure!), this is incredibly reminiscent of the 80s without being retro in the slightest. Rather, it seems haunted by the era. At times like this I'm reminded of Simple Minds' Veldt, which I've always sworn sounds just like ISDN-era FSOL. Without a doubt, Hot Knives is unquestionably a highlight of ISDN Black, re-framing it squarely as a post-post punk record.

Calls back a time when there were meadows as far as the eye could see.

After fading out into some outer space sonix zapping through the machines, you get a solid minute plus of pure underwater atmosphere. Then, the treated guitars of guest auteur Robert Fripp (he of King Crimson, whose 80s records like Discipline and Beat I should have mentioned during the bonus round) enter the picture in the pastoral sound painting of the countryside that is A Study Of Six Guitars. Idyllic and blissful, with just a hint of ECM jazz (think Pat Metheny's New Chautauqua). It makes you wonder if the lads were well into ECM at the time, which would have put them way ahead of the pack (recall that point about ten years ago when everyone was checking the label). This is actually the one song from the tail end of the album that makes it to both editions of ISDN.

The closing track, An End Of Sorts, wires a pounding electric rhythm to another of the album's rare bucolic impulses, bringing it all back home with a strong sense of anxiety. It actually reminds me of Tournesol's Draagmad Ultramarine, that same sense of illogical juxtaposition, a fusion of ethereal synths and aggressive slow-motion rhythm in a swirling portrait of unease. Like a giant question mark hanging over the proceedings, it's a fitting end to this enigmatic album that lies at the crossroads of the FSOL story.

...or, it could have happened this way (inverted)...

We knew they were lurking out there in ways too complex for stalwarts to imagine.

Egypt's reeds detuned and in rapid-fire, recede into the distance as a looping bassline — sounding like high tension power lines and seemingly built from a distorted kick drum — heralds the arrival of Kai. With its gravity-boot drums and soaring flutes competing in the mix with spaced-out atmospherics, its a big part of the reason why ISDN White feels like such a trip hop record. It's yet another track that seems to share common ground with Depth Charge, especially records like Sex, Sluts & Heaven (Bordello Mix) and Daughters Of Darkness.

Amoeba flows directly from the tail end of Kai, borrowing the the atmospheric drift of The Alan Parsons Project's Nucleus and pairing it with some Hawaiian slide guitar. Heavy brakes sounding as if they were recorded in a garage two blocks away roll into view, propelling the track through its surreal journey with no destination. A fascinating détente between Lifeforms and The Isness, it nevertheless manages to be quintessentially ISDN. It flows on a warm bed of sound into A Study Of Six Guitars, a tune which is more or less identical to its counterpart on ISDN Black, at least until it reaches its protracted conclusion and spills into a solid minute of space music (in the spirit of Steve Hillage's seminal Rainbow Dome Musick) before vanishing into another gentle spell of outer space sonix.

Something happened on Dollis Hill.

The loose downtempo breakbeat of Snake Hips kicks into the record's home stretch, introducing a smoker's favorite to wind up the proceedings. Tensile, plucked strings move up and down the scales precariously as a mutant bassline spars with the drums. Warped horns stab through the track like the guitars did in Son Of Lung — and sounding just as fake! — while the deep space effects return in full force. The downbeat swaps out for a tricky rhythm matrix nearly identical to the one Timbaland would unveil on Missy "Misdemeanor" Elliott's The Rain Supa Dupa Fly a few years later, and suddenly the track explodes into widescreen, going cinematic in a stunning crescendo that sounds like pure science-fiction. Like some dream studio session with SA-RA and Kevin Saunderson working up a vibe, it's pure machine soul. Only lasting a handful of bars, it rides out on a splash of cymbals and the sound of skyscraper guitars trilling majestic toward the heavens.

He was gone and the transmission went on without him.

And then it's all over, you're dropped back to wherever you started. Back to the world. ISDN — whatever the version — is a true head trip of a record, and it's impossible to hear it without vivid imagery swirling through the mind in time to the music. Dougans and Cobain turned out to be right after all when they ventured in the liner notes that people hadn't lost the ability to conjure atmospheres. Without a doubt, it's definitely a record worth spending some serious time with.

Which version is better, you ask? That's a tough one. If you really pressed me to choose, I'd go with the easier-to-find ISDN White, for one because its the version I grew up with and therefore sounds more natural to my ears. Also, as a gentleman who walks the downbeat path, I'll always dig it the most as a trip hop record. Tunes like Kai and Snake Hips are absolutely killer slabs of abstract hip hop par excellence, bringing that unmistakable sense of warped FSOL magic to the form.

And yet I couldn't do without Hot Knives, which alongside Egypt and Snake Hips round out my trio of favorite tracks on the album. So I need them both, gravitating toward one or the other depending on where my headspace is at the time. When all is said and done, it's the unmistakable post punk flavor of ISDN Black that tips it into Terminal Vibrationterritory (and accordingly makes it the record of the month), and marks it out as a triumphant culmination of post punk's dancefloor diaspora. It's as if the experiments of 23 Skidoo, Material and The Pop Group were finally being picked up again, warped and twisted into strange new shapes, and projected deep into the heart of the future. After all, there's a reason they're called The Future Sound Of London.

Space. The vastness of which we cannot even begin to comprehend. The crew of the Apollo 13 mission traveled farther into it than any human ever has — 248,655 miles — during their improvised orbit of the moon. By way of comparison, the Milky Way galaxy is 100,000 light years across... that's 600,000,000,000,000,000 miles! And then there's the rest of the universe out there... Hubble gives us a deeper view into it, but we're still talking about just the tip of the iceberg.

Outer space has long been a perennial obsession of mine, and one that I've indulged in freely for the first half of 2016. It kept me going for what you might call a transitional period in my life, during which I aimed to get back to the core of what inspired me to get out there and do my thing in the first place. For that stretch, the Parallax Room became a starship with which to survey the outer reaches of the cosmos through the lens of sonic exploration. The objective was to pull together a brace of records from the Parallax stacks that cleave to space as a theme, reveling in it's vastness of possibility.

The initial plan back in January was to compile a list of twenty records and post the results up here within a week, but it quickly grew far beyond those modest parameters. It expanded well past 120 before reason prevailed and I started cutting some of the more peripheral ones (and a few pretty tough calls too), rounding the list down to an even 100. I did manage to keep an alternate listing of all the records that nearly made it, so I might toss those up here at some point as a footnote. At any rate, I'd love to hear from you about any records that you think I may have missed... I'm always up for a brand new sonic excursion!

This list is the culmination of the past six months spent in the outer reaches of deep space. Each of these records is a chapter in the story of music's dalliance with the cosmos, tracing a fascination with the stars through the 20th and beyond. Whatever the current constraints may be with respect to space travel, there's practically no limit to the human imagination. And so, our journey begins, in loose chronological order:

1. Gustav HolstThe Planets

RCA Red Seal1916/1977

Surely any discussion of music's obsession with space must start with Holst? I grew up hearing this from both my grandfather, who was a classical devotee, and pops himself. Subsequently it was one of the first classical records I ever picked up on. Note also that in 2016 its planetary scope is once again scientifically accurate, as Pluto — which had not yet been discovered when Holst was writing The Planets — is no longer classified as a planet.

2. Louis and Bebe BarronForbidden Planet: Original MGM Soundtrack

Planet1956/1976

Early on, space — and electronic — music were largely the preserve of cinema (see also Bernard Herrmann's use of theremin in The Day The Earth Stood Still). Famously credited as electronic tonalities to circumvent the film industry's music guild regulations, this score had far-reaching implications, in effect cementing the connection between the theme of space and the sounds of electronic music in the public imagination. After all, visions of the final frontier surely must be accompanied by sounds from another world! So strange was the soundtrack in its own time that it wasn't released as a standalone record until the mid-seventies.

3. The TornadosTelstar

Decca1962

Landmark Joe Meek production, inspired by the launch of the Telstar communications satellite in 1962. Using the MO of surf rock as its launching pad, this is in essence the birth of space rock. What is Pink Floyd's Interstellar Overdrive if not a freaked out update of this racing, space-age rock 'n roll? Gleaming possibilities of a radiant future are in evidence throughout (just check the sleeve!).

4. The VenturesThe Ventures In Space

Dolton1964

The Ventures had already covered Telstar on the previous year's The Ventures Play Telstar, but here they stretch the space theme across a whole LP. Containing their own space/surf rock masterpiece Out Of Limits, this record also boasts a cover of The Twilight Zone theme! You can hear the basis of The Plugz' Reel Ten and the whole sci-fi aspect of the Repo Man aesthetic played out here (with Tarantino's later use of Out Of Limits in Pulp Fiction, well it stacks up doesn't it?). I was recently pleased to discover that this was one of my brother Matt's favorite albums of all time.

5. The ByrdsFifth Dimension

Columbia1966

A Parallax 100 record. Inspired by Coltrane and Shankar in equal measure, this is — as far as I can tell — the birth of acid rock. The absolutely epochal Eight Miles High is the centerpiece, its ominous bass, free fall rhythms and Roger McGuinn's quicksilver guitar solo clearly transmuting those earlier stabs at space rock — coming from the surf — into a wild freeform psychedelia. The Byrds at this point enjoying a reputation as space rockers, and in a contemporary radio interview (featured on the expanded CD reissue of 5D) David Crosby and Roger McGuinn talk at length about extraterrestrial life, hoping that radio transmissions of their songs might be heard by aliens who would ultimately take them up for a ride in their spaceship!

6. John ColtraneInterstellar Space

Impulse!1967/1974

Speaking of Coltrane, this wild posthumous release is something of a sister record to Sun Ship (my absolute favorite free jazz record of all time), taking that record's unfettered percussive drive to it's logical conclusion (Rashied Ali picking up drum duties from Elvin Jones this time out). Both records are brilliant stone tablets of deep space astral jazz. Parts of this could even accompany the deafening silence of the murder scene in 2001: A Space Odyssey and Dr. Frank Poole's tumble into the void of space.

7. Morton SubotnickSilver Apples Of The Moon

Nonesuch1967

Two extended movements spread across both sides of this pioneering electronic record (the first to sell in serious numbers, in fact). One of Subotnick's great innovations was to build up rhythmic repetition from electronic sounds (which before then had largely been confined to the freeform, abstract context of academia). Think about that for a second: tracing that concept through Kraftwerk and Moroder and up to the present day... well, there's no getting around its centrality to modern music. It's crucial!

Here, Subotnick wrings otherworldly sounds from the Buchla modular synthesizer, with Part 1 largely an excursion through wandering tones while Part 2's mid-section coalesces into a frenetic rhythmic thrust. Everything here thoroughly abstract and alien.

8. Various2001: A Space OdysseyMusic From The Motion Picture Soundtrack

MGM1968

The proverbially good science fiction film.Stanley Kubrick famously used large swathes of modern classical recordings as guide music during the film's production, and then ultimately chose to continue using them in the final cut rather than the original score prepared by Alex North. Perhaps nothing at the time could match the otherworldly sounds of Strauss, Ligeti and Khachaturian, which lend further gravity to a singular, spellbinding film, running the gamut from primate battles on Earth to space stations in orbit and an expedition to the far side of Jupiter (Beyond The Infinite).

9. 101 StringsAstro-Sounds From Beyond The Year 2000

Alshire1968

Easy-listening orchestra 101 Strings veers off into the strange. After all, it was the sixties! There's no getting around that this one's something of a cash-in on both 2001 and psychedelia, a concession to the heads in an attempt to shift a few extra units. You can see the equations being drawn up: space x psychedelia = hippie $$$! Nevertheless, this contains moments of pure dread like Flameout, those searing strings and proto-hip hop breaks provide a menacing background for demented acid-fried guitar lines to wander freely.

I was surprised to be unable to recall any earlier space-themed exotica operating at the album level. Surely I missed something!? At any rate, this will do.

10. Michael CzajkowskiPeople The Sky

Vanguard Cardinal1969

More sixties electronica with its eyes fixed firmly on the stars. In its deeply rhythmic drive, that synthetic almost-percussion, you can hear pre-echoes of Herbie Hancock's Nobu and beyond. Space colonization, for years on the back burner, has returned to discussion recently with science-fiction films like Interstellar and The Martian. In retrospect, it must have seemed a foregone conclusion in 1969.

11. Pink FloydUmmagumma

Harvest1969

If you're talking the cosmos, there's no getting around this bunch who are — in the popular imagination — the premier space rockers. My vote goes to this double-album, the live disc of which takes prime Barrett-era numbers like Astronomy Domine, A Saucerful Of Secrets and Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun into the deep black of space.

The studio disc draws the group as far away from traditional rock forms as they would ever travel, working with textures and treated instruments to stretch the boundaries of their individual compositions into the realm of pure atmosphere.

12. Jefferson AirplaneMexico/Have You Seen The Saucers

RCA Victor1970

The standard-bearers of acid rock enter the space race. In truth, they'd dabbled even earlier with Crown Of Creation's Star Track, but this double a-side single takes matters to another level altogether in what might be the band's finest moment. Paul Kantner's Have You Seen The Saucers ties together alien contact, government conspiracy and ecological concerns all in the space three-and-a-half minutes of cinematic high-desert psychedelia.

13. Paul Kantner/Jefferson StarshipBlows Against The Empire

RCA Victor1970

Kantner ascends further into the cosmos with this concept album that follows a band of counter-culture militants (who bear a striking resemblance to Jefferson Airplane) as they hijack a starship and set course for some distant planet to start a new life on.

Theoretically, this is the first Jefferson Starship tile to drop, but we're still a long way from We Built This City. The core of the record's sound lies in piano led, spaced-out acid folk. There's a blink-and-you-might-miss-it masterpiece in Sunrise, with powerful, bewitching vocals from the inimitable Grace Slick. It bears an uncanny resemblance to the droning guitar soundscapes that Richard Pinhas would later explore in Heldon, and is about as intense a two-minutes as you could ask for.

14. UFOUFO 1

Beacon1970

Before they were arena rockers, this group forged a motorik form of no-frills space rock distilled down to its purest essence. With graphics that had people thinking they were krautrockers, this sleeve always makes me think of the card game Space Age Slap Jack.

Maybe no one remembers this? It featured similarly-styled artwork, evoking a desolate seventies sense of outer space. I had a deck as a kid back in the eighties, and only recently tracked one down again. I'd often dream of launching into the stars aboard some cramped starship, never to see home again. Digital readouts glowing in sharp red and green as the Earth shrinks in the distance.

15. Captain BeyondCaptain Beyond

Capricorn1972

West Coast space rock. Captain Beyond featured former members of Iron Butterfly, Deep Purple and the Johnny Winter band, who coalesced in early-seventies Los Angeles and hung around through most of the decade (and frequent personnel changes) for a series of three albums. This one is the first, and also the best. Large swathes of the record run together, moving through a series of shifting suites while the band slide between crunchy hard rock and ethereal astral reveries like the shimmering Myopic Void (a cosmic bolero of sorts). One of the great unsung American hard rock LPs, it should be more widely known.

16. KhanSpace Shanty

Deram1972

Canterbury prog on the outer space tip, this is the dense, complicated flipside to the West Coast almost-prog of Jefferson Starship and Captain Beyond. Built atop the foundation of Nick Greenwood's throbbing bass and Eric Peachey's zero-gravity breaks, the sound stage is dominated by both Dave Stewart's intricate organ runs and muscular guitar fretwork from the great Steve Hillage. I've often wondered whether Leftfield's Space Shanty had anything to do with this album...

17. Alice ColtraneStringsWorld Galaxy

Impulse!1972

Pure, majestic Indo jazz from Lady Coltrane. This is outer space music, featuring a lush orchestra in freeform orbit, stretching out across a vast widescreen canvas. Containing her mind-blowing, breakbeat-led version of A Love Supreme and the breathtakingly cinematic Galaxy In Satchidananda, this is Coltrane at her absolute peak, locked into the cosmic and moving galaxies. Truly indispensable.

18. Tangerine DreamZeit

Ohr1972

The previous year's Alpha Centauri would also apply, but this one remains my favorite of the early Tangerine Dream records. With four long tracks spread across four sides of a gatefold double-album, these droning soundscapes stretch out and swirl before you in ponderous slow-motion like a vortex in the darkness, as chilling and vast as outer space itself.

19. VulcansStar Trek

Trojan1972

Early prog/space instrumental reggae cash-in, this remains worthwhile for its bizarre origins and brazenly unique sonic palette. Bathed in the swampy textures of the Moog synthesizer, it rides a crazed off-kilter skank through a comic book vision of the cosmos. Inspired in part by the television show of the same name, the proceedings slowly devolve into references to Dracula and other denizens of the strange.

20. Sun RaSpace Is The Place

Impulse!1973

Space jazz from the greatest purveyor of the form. Hard to choose just one Sun Ra record, in fact this list could be dominated by appearances from the man — records like The Heliocentric Worlds Of Sun Ra, Cosmos and Strange Celestial Road — but this soundtrack for his sprawling motion picture of the same name fits the most snugly within present company. An extraordinarily bizarre film, it infuses space exploration with Egyptology and more than a hint of seventies conspiracy dread, projecting the spirit of its time onto the stars.

21. Herbie HancockSextant

Columbia1973

Further adventures in space jazz. This could have been recorded yesterday. The machine loops running through Rain Dance play out like an alien encounter, while Hidden Shadows seems to approximate the feeling of weightlessness. Robert Springett's cover painting, with its lunar surface looming in the fiery night sky, is probably my favorite sleeve of all-time.

22. HawkwindSpace Ritual

United Artists1973

Spaced out biker rock. This sprawling double-live set captures the band's wild stage show, featuring elaborate light works, nude dancers and spoken word interludes by Robert Calvert (with passages quoted from the science fantasy author Michael Moorcock), all backed by the band's Dionysian brand of wild space rock. Songs like Time We Left This World Today and Orgone Accumulator emerge from the ether of extended atmospheric interludes, with the full tilt rock 'n roll assault of Master Of The Universe seeming to blast through the stratosphere with a relentless booster-rocket drive.

23. BrainticketCelestial Ocean

RCA Victor1973

I took a chance on this one back in the day based on the incredible sleeve, which is actually different from the (equally stunning) original. Another node on the Egypt/space axis, its hieroglyphs set in stark relief against the backdrop of what looks like an interplanetary starship.

The sounds within are equally compelling... strange cargo indeed. You get lost in the deep texture of those rolling electronic sequences while sitars, percussion and acoustic guitars weave throughout. I've always been surprised that this record isn't more widely praised, indeed I've only ever seen the band's earlier Psychonaut garner the occasional mention in krautrock discussions.

24. The Cosmic JokersThe Cosmic Jokers

Kosmische Musik1974

Incidentally, I picked this up on the same day as Celestial Ocean (something like twelve/thirteen years ago?). Featuring telepathic interplay between Kosmische luminaries like Klaus Schulze and Manuel Göttsching, this is a headfirst plunge into liquid inner/outer space. I only later discovered that it was the first in a series of five records, famously compiled from source tapes of endless jams without the musicians' knowledge! Still, a perfect record.

25. GongYou

Virgin1974

More pyramids, this time by way of Central America. There's just no getting around Daevid Allen's gang when discussing space music. Gong started out essentially expanding on Syd Barrett-era Pink Floyd's pioneering work in the field, before gradually veering into a sort of spaced out jazz fusion under the tutelage of Pierre Moerlen (ultimately leading to Allen's departure from his own group after this album). You exists at the point of intersection between those two universes of sound, with its freeform jazz-tinged psychedelia illuminated by the liquid guitar figures of Steve Hillage.

26. Billy CobhamTotal Eclipse

Atlantic1974

Dating back to its origins, fusion had its own fascination with the cosmic (signposted by records like Miles In The Sky and of course Sextant). Fresh from his sessions with Miles Davis and solo debut Spectrum, Billy Cobham cut Crosswinds and Total Eclipse, which were both released in quick succession in 1974. Total Eclipse takes Spectrum's flowing, multi-part jams into ever more fluid territory, with even the most hard rocking rhythms given to a lightness of touch and infused with a low-slung swing.

27. Return To ForeverWhere Have I Known You Before

Polydor1974

Plying the same furrow as Billy Cobham, Return To Forever's records are prototypical peak-period fusion. At this point there was a fair bit of crossover, sonically speaking, between jazz and prog (the Canterbury scene, Brand X, etc.). Indeed, intricate fusion outings like The Shadow Of Lo, Vulcan Worlds and Song To The Pharoah Kings bear striking similarities to the likes of Hatfield & The North (and vice versa). A fertile pasture, in other words, even if my absolute favorite tune here is Earth Juice — an undisclosed disco banger!

28. ParliamentMothership Connection

Casablanca1975

If space is the word, then there's no getting around P-Funk's galactic escapades. Mothership Connection is the moment when the band's interplanetary agenda truly took center stage: they even took to landing a giant starship on stage each night during their subsequent world tour. The group's transformation from its earlier acid-fried incarnation to a smooth-edged groove machine is finalized here, with Bootsy Collins' basslines hitting their elastic peak and Bernie Worrell's technicolor keyboards taking on a life of their own.

29. Dexter WanselLife On Mars

Philadelphia International1976

As house producer for Philadelphia International, Dexter Wansel played a crucial role in much of the label's late-seventies output, building on the groundwork that Gamble & Huff laid down during the first half of the decade. In parallel with his production work, Wansel released four solo records that split the difference between smooth Philly soul and jazz fusion.

His debut solo outing, Life On Mars, features solar jazz funk excursions like Theme From The Planets and Rings Of Saturn, in which every texture seems shot through with liquid funk and an otherworldly, synth-heavy glow. The space theme recurs throughout Wansel's work: his 1978 album Voyager — home of the awesome Solutions — even features a landed Voyager probe on it's sleeve with Wansel decked out in a spacesuit on the back!

30. ChromeThe Visitation

Siren1976

Only scooped this up relatively recently thanks to a timely reissue by Cleopatra. Chrome's debut came out just before Helios Creed joined the group. His enlistment is widely considered the x-factor that pushed the group into the stratosphere, but to my mind this is still a very worthwhile record, Damon Edge's uncompromising vision already steering the band toward greatness. Occasionally touted as the midpoint between Bay Area acid rock and post punk — shadows of Jefferson Airplane, Santana and even the early Journey records can be felt throughout — there's a raw directness to this material that places it firmly alongside the soon-to-be-active Public Image Ltd. and The Pop Group.

31. AshraNew Age Of Earth

Virgin1976

Manuel Göttsching's space music opus. Warm electronic sequences slowly unfurl as he occasionally transmits his shimmering guitar figures deep into the cosmos. The sleeve sometimes makes me think of the towering architecture in the film On The Silver Globe, even if angelic reveries like Sunrain and Deep Distance are light-years away from that film's unremittingly bleak landscapes. Simply beautiful, every home should have a copy.

32. TomitaThe Tomita Planets

RCA Red Seal1976

Isao Tomita performs Holst's The Planets, the space-inspired classical piece seemingly a natural fit for his electronic instrumentation. Tomita's version of Mercury, The Winged Messenger sounds strikingly like some of the The Orb's zanier moments. I remember my mom once checked out a video from the library that had NASA footage edited to accompany this work. It started with jagged, violent cuts for Mars, The Bringer Of War and became all soft and drifty for Neptune, The Mystic. Needless to say, it was right up my alley.

33. VangelisAlbedo 0.39

RCA1976

Albedo: The reflecting power of a planet or other non-luminous body. A perfect reflector would have an Albedo of 100%. The Earth's Albedo is 39%, or 0.39.

taken from the liner notes

This proggy slab of electronica matches racing synth sequences with freeform live drumming. Perhaps a touch more minimal than the previous year's Heaven And Hell, you can still hear the basis for his subsequent soundtrack work (Blade Runner, Chariots Of Fire, etc.) in the colossal passages scattered throughout (even if I do tend to prefer its quieter moments).

34. Jean-Michel JarreOxygene

Polydor1976

I owe this one completely to my Uncle James. I remember showing him a song that I was working on back in the day and he asked have you ever heard of Jean-Michel Jarre? A couple months later he gave me the Images compilation. Shortly after, I started buying the albums and digging deeper into seventies electronica. Parts of Oxygene have shown up in quite a few places, for example the surreal desert running scenes in Gallipoli and the radio play for The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy.

35. The Mike Theodore OrchestraCosmic Wind

Westbound1977

Cosmic disco! The following album High On Mad Mountain might go even further off the edge, but this does have the inimitable Moon Trek. Sounding like an unlikely cross between car chase music from a seventies cop show and the original Star Trek theme, it's an unforgettable slice of space age bachelor pad music taken for a walk on the dancefloor. Before seeing Searching For Sugar Man, I'd never known that Mike Theodore co-produced Sixto Rodriguez's classic debut Cold Fact with Dennis Coffey. The interview clips with the both of them came as a pleasant surprise.

36. MandréMandré

Motown1977

Further adventures in cosmic disco. Virtually any of Mandré's records would qualify, but the seventeen-minute ARP odyssey Solar Flight gives this one the edge. Mandré was one Andre Lewis, former session man and synth-wizard who was touted by Motown as a man from outer space and only ever appeared with his face obscured by a futuristic mask (decades before Daft Punk).

37. Eddie PalmieriExploration: Salsa-Descarga-Jazz

Coco1978

Select far-out moments from the salsa legend's seventies recordings rounded up into one cosmic package (the sleeve, another personal favorite, is a dead give away). Cobarde homes in on the same zone of controlled chaos as Coltrane's space jazz excursions, while at the same time making me flash on Carl Craig's jazz outings with Innerzone Orchestra. Chocolate Ice Cream and The Mod Scene are sprawling downbeat jazz fission in league with Miles Davis' seventies sound, and I can't help using the term zero-gravity when describing Condiciones Que Existen's casually funky low-slung breaks.

38. Roy BuchananYou're Not Alone

Atlantic1978

Gorgeous space-blues. I discovered this through The Music Of Cosmos compilation, the soundtrack to Carl Sagan's documentary mini-series, where the elegiac Fly... Night Bird stood out from the surrounding selections. Roy Buchanan one of the great blues guitarists of the era, his earlier instrumental Sweet Dreams remains a classic rock staple (it even factors into the ending of Martin Scorsese's The Departed). You're Not Alone brings that sound into the realm of jazz-tinged psychedelia, stretching mournful solos across vast pools of atmospheric Rhodes and electronics, with a heavenly version of Neil Young's Down By The River standing as just one particular highlight.

39. Steve HillageRainbow Dome Musick

Virgin1979

Steve Hillage with the hat trick! I remember picking this one up on the same day as New Age Of Earth. Space music par excellence with Hillage's guitar glissandos arcing over a rolling riverbed of found sound and twinkling ARPs. The famous anecdote around this record has The Orb's Alex Patterson spinning its sounds in the back room at Paul Oakenfold's Land Of Oz club when an unsuspecting Steve Hillage wanders in, resulting in his guest appearance on The Orb’s Adventures Beyond The Ultraworld and further dancefloor excursions as System 7 (whose Sinbad/Quest 12" nearly made this list).

40. The Human LeagueThe Dignity Of Labour Pts. 1-4

Fast Product1979

The Human League's follow up to their epochal Being Boiled is a grainy, lo-fi excursion into seventies deep space electronica. The sleeve features a photo of Yuri Gagarin receiving commendations from the Soviet government for completing the first manned mission into space. The record's conceit was that the space program was only made possible by the coal miners beneath the earth providing fuel for the workers in the steel mills who built the rockets that carried Gagarin into space. Hence, The Dignity Of Labour.

41. Tubeway ArmyReplicas

Beggars Banquet1979

As was the case with exotica, I was surprised that I couldn't think of more space-explicit new wave space records. Here's one that fit the bill, featuring Gary Numan's extended storyboard concept — one that he hoped to one day flesh out into a science-fiction novel — built around aliens and robots involved in the control of civilization. Down In The Park even found its way — via a Foo Fighters cover version — onto an X-Files tribute album some years later.

42. QueenFlash Gordon: Original Soundtrack

EMI1980

Klytus... I'm bored. What plaything can you offer me today? This is an early one for me. Indeed, I was obsessed with this movie as a kid. So not much has changed... and at the very least it's a whole lot of fun. Essentially a not-totally-serious remake of the science-fiction serial dating back to the 1930's. Perhaps this is where the knowingly camp aesthetic enters the mainstream? Even if there are some incredibly touching moments: Timothy Dalton's heroic turnaround and basically everything involving Topol throughout the second half of the movie.

This is the soundtrack to the film of the same name, famously provided by Queen. Everyone knows the title track, but there are a number of instrumentals throughout that threaten to steal the show: The Kiss Aura Resurrects Flash, Arboria Planet Of The Tree Men and the gorgeous In The Space Capsule The Love Theme — my absolute favorite moment on the record.

43. Various ArtistsThe Music Of Cosmos

RCA1980/1981

Another one given to me by the same uncle behind the Jarre compilation. This is the soundtrack to Carl Sagan's epic mini-series documentary Cosmos, featuring loads of space music from Vangelis along with myriad classical pieces by the likes of Vivaldi, Stravinsky and Shostakovich. Once again, the Roy Buchanan track really caught my attention here, totally unique in this context.

44. BlackbeardI Wah Dub

More Cut1980

Dennis Bovell's orbital dub symphony. Bovell who started out with storied UK reggae group Matumbi, gradually becomes immersed in the studio itself and drifts into the post punk slipstream, resulting in productions for The Pop Group, The Slits and even Ryuichi Sakamoto. Here he cuts loose under the pseudonym Blackbeard, spinning out otherworldly dub reggae in widescreen. Tunes like Electrocharge and Reflections are on a serious outer rim science-fiction tip.

45. Creation RebelStarship Africa

4D Rhythms1980

More interplanetary reggae running parallel to the post punk zeitgeist, this time with Adrian Sherwood behind the mixing board. Sherwood another key figure operating at the axis of dub and post punk, producing the likes of Mark Stewart, Tackhead and Fats Comet alongside projects like New Age Steppers and African Head Charge.

Creation Rebel had a gift for left field dub excursions, and Starship Africa takes them as far out as they would ever travel. Structured as two extended suites, Starship Africa and Space Movement, this is the fluid other to Blackbeard's rock-hard riddims.

46. The PoliceGhost In The Machine

A&M1981

Sting's diabolical turn in David Lynch's adaptation of Dune still a few years away at this point. Here, the singular atmosphere of Walking On The Moon gets stretched over an entire LP. Moody and spacious. Perhaps not explicitly space-themed but certainly in thrall to the cosmos, eyes locked firmly onto the stars. The atmosphere here just embodies outer space. Smash hit Invisible Sun creeps in on a bed of tension and just builds, while the closing duo of Secret Journey and Darkness always remind me of Detroit techno in their elegant spaciousness.

47. Clara MondshineLuna Africana

Innovative Communication1981

Krautrock bleeds into the eighties, best represented by the Innovative Communication and Sky labels. A node in the development of organic electronica, occupying the same interzone between kosmische and new age as Double Fantasy's Universal Ave (another one in the nearly list). Like Cluster, Clara Mondshine generates multi-faceted electronic systems that stretch out and develop into glistening tone poems, quickly taking on a life of their own. Word is that this sounds great at both 33 and 45 RPM...

48. Prince JammyPrince Jammy Destroys The Invaders...

Greensleeves1982

The young Prince Jammy, still an apprentice of King Tubby and yet to redefine reggae with Sleng Teng and the excellent Computerised Dub, unleashed this technology-infused widescreen dub slate. I think Computerised Dub has the edge on this — only slightly — but it's still a wonderful record in its own right. Electronic drones herald the arrival of almost every track like the gongs in James Brown's Hell, dropping into fathoms deep bass and subterranean production magic that simply refuses to let up. One of the great night drive records.

49. Patrick CowleyMind Warp

Megatone1982

Not Cowley's greatest work, but the outer space visual/sonic stylings place this firmly into orbit. That sleeve is as good a thumbnail as any for the whole rolling over vector landscapes trip that I'm forever alluding to. Playing a crucial role in the development of hyperdrive West Coast disco, San Francisco man Cowley cut his teeth producing Sylvester's You Make Me Feel Mighty Real and turned out a monster remix of Donna Summer's I Feel Love: computer disco madness of the highest caliber.

Cowley's gotten the Arthur Russell treatment lately, with lavish reissues of unreleased material such as School Daze and Muscle Up hitting the shelves over the last few years. Great to see this brilliant lo-fi mechanoid funk finally find its way onto the world's turntables.

E'G1983

One of the original albums in my collection, and basically the only reason I was able to get through calculus in college. This music was originally created by Eno and co. to accompany a documentary on the Apollo missions. The first side is dominated by plaintive, melancholy ambient while the second brings in Daniel Lanois' pedal-steel to lighten the atmosphere with some interstellar country-western guitar moves. This must, I think, be understood as the basis of the atmospheric end of Eno's production work with U2 (The Unforgettable Fire's 4th Of July is cut from the same cloth as this album). The opening Understars is one of the great ambient tracks, a perfect distillation of the form.

51. The Jonzun CrewLost In Space

Tommy Boy1983

Electro as a musical genre as often as not kept space in its sights, and is likely the point where seventies cosmic jazz and soul crossed into the carnal climate of the eighties mainstream. The Jonzun Crew dressed in elaborate stage costumes, clearly inspired by Parliament, Earth, Wind & Fire and other large funk groups of the previous decade. They even thank Sun Ra in the liner notes and have a track of their own called Space Is The Place. Operating at the axis of space and the nascent video game explosion, this music extrapolated a totally new sound and vision out of those twin constituent elements. See also Planet Patrol.

52. NewcleusSpace Is The Place

Sunnyview1985

More electro with an interplanetary agenda, exemplified by the monster title track. This the follow up to the group's epochal Jam On Revenge, expanding that record's smooth grooves even further into widescreen. Newcleus' secret weapon lie in fleshing out electro's skeletal drum machine framework with an array of lush pads and atmospherics, the end result an exercise in rolling digital funk. The cycling tronix of Teknology and Make It Live embody this mesmerizing, immersive sound. Check out that winning sleeve art too (by Bob Camp, who was later involved in The Ren & Stimpy Show), which recalls Pedro Bell's awesome illustrations for Funkadelic.

∞. Michael JacksonCaptain EO

Disney1985

Bonus beat! There was never an actual soundtrack released for this film. Still, there's no getting around it. You really want Another Part Of Me playing whenever you leave a planet. This perfectly captures the optimism of mainstream science-fiction in the post-Star Wars era. My heart fell when Disney replaced this with the abysmal Honey, We Shrunk The Audience back in the nineties. Thankfully, they brought EO back after Michael Jackson's untimely passing. Back in the day, I remember seeing a special on TV — featuring Whoopi Goldberg — about the making of this short film. Disney should issue Captain EO — with that featurette included — on DVD. Somebody make it happen!

53. Afrika Bambaataa & Soulsonic ForcePlanet Rock: The Album

Tommy Boy1986

The original deep space electro crew didn't get the LP treatment until well after the electro boom had already started to wane (with Run-DMC in full swing and N.W.A. just around the corner). However, this rounds everything up into one extraterrestrial package (including the original versions of Planet Rock and Looking For The Perfect Beat). An essential document and the final word in interplanetary electro.

54. A.R. Kane"I"

Rough Trade1989

The angelic other in eighties indie rock, A.R. Kane made unclassifiable alien dreamtime music that seemed to prefigure shoegaze along with myriad other forms to come. I nearly included records by Loop and Spacemen 3 here as well, but — as great as they are — perhaps their interstellar aims weren't quite explicit enough for this particular list.

A.R. Kane, on the other hand, seemed locked into the same galactic frequency as Sun Ra... and nowhere more than on the extended double-LP "I". A Love From Outer Space is one of the great pop songs of its era, pairing machine rhythms with guitar feedback in a glorious free fall love song.

55. SpaceSpace

KLF Communications1990

Since they both served as conduits of eighties post punk resolve into the next decade's dance explosion, it's rather appropriate that this one-off collaboration between The Orb's Alex Paterson and Jimmy Cauty of The KLF takes us into the nineties. This deep space ambient music, forming a loose trilogy with The Orb's Adventures Beyond The Ultraworld and The KLF's Chill Out, feels like tumbling into a wormhole (its acid-fried cut up sleeve is the first clue).

56. Sun ElectricO'locco

WAU! Mr. Modo1990

Picking up where Space left off, O'locco features Sun Electric's timely elongating of Larry Heard's deep house template into what came to be known as ambient house. The Kama Sutra and Space Therapy versions showcase the German group's original vision, while the four parts of the Orbital Therapy version (remixed by The Orb) stretch things out even further. Initially released on Paterson's WAU! Mr. Modo label, it later cropped up on R&S, with Sun Electric ultimately hooking up with the label's ambient subsidiary Apollo for a handful of excellent albums.

57. The OrbThe Orb's Adventures Beyond The Ultraworld

Big Life1991

Dr. Alex Paterson's sprawling double-LP ambient house stone tablet. One of those records you can just throw on and get lost in. Everyone knows the album-opener Little Fluffy Clouds, which offers a preview of things to follow: the nomadic breaks of Outlands and Earth Gaia, Into The Fourth Dimension's resolute proto-trance drive, the endless live mix of A Huge Ever Growing Pulsating Brain That Rules From The Centre Of The Ultraworld, Perpetual Dawn's pulsing dub moves, Supernova At The End Of The Universe's twisting downbeat crawl and of course the sprawling ambient soundscapes of Back Side Of The Moon, Spanish Castles In Space and Star 6 & 7 8 9.

58. BiosphereMicrogravity

Apollo1991

Another chapter in the ambient house story, this time coming from inside the Arctic Circle. Geir Jenssen — who went on to release a whole brace of classic ambient albums like Cirque and Substrata — hosted a radio show called Bleep Culture in his hometown of Tromsø, Norway, during which he spun a mix of ambient and techno, punctuated by what he called small astronomy lectures.1Microgravity clearly draws inspiration from those transmissions, with moody techno cuts like Baby Interphase and Chromosphere flowing smoothly into the sublime ambient drift of Cloudwalker II and Biosphere. The title track even samples David Gulpilil's he know the moon, he know the stars, and he know the milky way dialogue from the NASA-themed film The Right Stuff.

59. Underground ResistanceThe Final Frontier

Underground Resistance1991

Detroit's Underground Resistance may have always had an ear to the street, but that only meant that the other one was pointed upward to the stars. Think Arecibo. The Final Frontier is a celestial cruise over rolling electro rhythms, with a phantom 303 acid line drifting in and out of the mix like a comet trail: a clear spiritual ancestor to the Red Planet records. This becomes even more explicit with Entering Quadrant Five, its hyperdrive fractal sequences spiraling over another tough electro backbeat — prefiguring some of The Martian's most g-force inducing flights of fancy — while Base Camp Alpha 808 is a spacious, percussive tumble through the sleeve imagery of Herbie Hancock's Sextant.

60. Deep Space NetworkEarth To Infinity

Source1992

I've always been unclear whether this record is self-titled or credited to Deep Space Network. Well, I still file it with the rest of Jonas Grossmann and David Moufang's output, so let's stick with that for the time being. This the first of their utterly unique freeform sonic excursions — records which were quietly released on their own Source imprint — and it might just be the greatest ambient house full-length of them all, sounding like field recordings transmitted from light-years away. A song like Morphic Fields, with such timeless beauty in its endless, gentle drift, deserves to be more widely heard.

61. DyewitnessObserving The Earth

Mid-Town1992

Monstrous Dutch hardcore shearing into proto-gabber territory. Observing The Earth canes the hoover sound into submission, thrashing about the room like a demented xenomorph, while Starship To Venus rewinds stop-start bleeps over a relentless hammer-blow kick drum. The flipside rivals the first, with Passion and Like This threading renegade breakbeats through their pounding rhythm matrix. Strangely enough, I bought my copy from Jon Bishop a few years back amidst a whole stack of hardcore records. So thanks to a true OG for introducing me to this tile in the first place.

62. X-102X-102 Discovers The Rings Of Saturn

Tresor1992

Another UR-related release, produced by the trio of Jeff Mills, Mad Mike and Robert Hood. Each track is named for one the rings or moons orbiting Saturn (plus one representing the planet itself), with the length of each corresponding to its size and distance from the others.2Hyperion and Groundzero The Planet recall earlier hardcore excursions like The Punisher and Sonic Destroyer, while you can feel the genesis of Hood and Mills' brand of minimal techno in the driving repetition of Enceladus and Titan. Impressionistic interludes like Tethys and A-Ring add considerably to the record's visionary depth, while the cinematic scope of Mimas marks it out as a particularly spellbinding moment.

63. Various ArtistsIntergalactic Beats

Planet E1992

This crucial compilation rounds up music from some of the earliest releases on Carl Craig's Planet E imprint, with a strong European showing thanks to incursions from Steffan Robbers' Eevo Lute and Kirk Degiorgio's ART labels on two separate EPs released by Craig during the preceding year. Plaid weigh in with the introspective machine music of Balil's Nort Route, while Steffan Robbers checks in with the gorgeous celestial reverie of Florence's A Touch Of Heaven. Carl Craig provides nearly half of the material here, with entries from 69's 4 Jazz Funk Classics, the awesome Free Your Mind by Piece and a surprise exclusive in the shape of Shop's most excellent Nitwit. Interestingly, both Terminator 2 and Alien 3 are listed in the liner notes as inspirations.

64. Dark ComedyCorbomite Maneuver

Transmat/Buzz1992

Named for an episode of the original Star Trek, this is Kenny Larkin's first record after leaving Plus 8. The centerpiece is War Of The Worlds (which also featured on the Intergalactic Beats compilation), an epic slice of cinematic deep space techno, its siren synths arcing over a pulsing Moroder-esque rhythm. I've always loved the sleeve illustration by Abdul Haqq, the brilliant Detroit artist behind Third Earth Visual Arts, who's also responsible for Intergalactic Beats' iconic sleeve art (right up there with Sextant as far as I'm concerned).

65. AcenTrip II The Moon Part 1

Production House1992

Deep space trip from the ardkore auteur. Absolutely brilliant arrangement of sound, with fast-forward breaks spooling out beneath a ravishing string section, all punctuated by a bionic diva wailing into the abyss. See also parts two and three (aka the Kaleidoscopiklimax), for further chapters in this exquisite lunar saga. Part two even features an incredible snatch of Nancy Sinatra's theme to the James Bond film You Only Live Twice.

66. The ProdigyOut Of Space

XL1992

Possibly the finest moment from this ragged bunch of techno renegades, riding a lengthy sample of Max Romeo's I Chase The Devil before tripping back into drum and bass. The music video,3 an exercise in amateurish charm multiplied by boundless optimism (this is light-years away from the big budget polish of Fat Of The Land), is among my all-time favorites.

67. Dynamix IIBass Planet

Dynamix II1993

Miami bass stalwarts Dynamix II kept electro's fires lit well into the nineties, when a new wave of producers like Drexciya and The Octagon Man would seize the torch and run with it. A concept record of sorts, Bass Planet takes the supercharged man-machine rhythms of the duos earlier records into deep orbit, exemplified by the soaring brilliance of a track like Machine Planet.

68. Galaxy 2 GalaxyGalaxy 2 Galaxy

Underground Resistance1993

You simply can't overstate the importance of outer space when discussing a crew like UR. This the third in a series of records — starting with Nation 2 Nation and followed by World 2 World — that find the group delving deep into corridors of dance-inflected space jazz. I say group but everything here (with the exception of guest spots featuring Juan Atkins and The Martian) is credited to Mad Mike. He seems to draw here on his roots as a live session musician back in the eighties (playing with groups like Parliament/Funkadelic), in a back-to-the-future gesture that would culminate in The Turning Point EP four years later.

Both versions of Hi-Tech Jazz pick up where Herbie Hancock and Eddie Russ left off, while Star Sailing follows the template of blissed-out jazz funk that UR laid out in earlier tracks like Body And Soul and Jupiter Jazz. There's also moments of fierce beauty, the most striking of which is Journey Of The Dragons. The magic lies in its graceful inevitability: those racing sequences punctuated by jabs from a razor-edged string section, a descending bassline and rolling 808 beats that wait two minutes to fully drop. It all simply unfolds. Meanwhile, Deep Space 9 A Brother Runs This Ship continues the bubbling undercurrent of Detroit's fascination with Star Trek — this time by way of Benjamin Sisko's Deep Space Nine.

69. The MartianRed Planet 4: Journey To The Martian Polar Cap

Red Planet1993

The Martian's records are cut from the same cloth as UR's, so much so that many at the time theorized that he was actually someone from that crew operating under a cloak of anonymity (I remember Mad Mike's name getting tossed around quite a bit). It turns out that The Martian was very much his own man, laboring in isolation to arrive at a wholly unique shade of sound. Visual Contact and the title track trade in wild trancelike shapes (see also the earlier Stardancer), while Red Atmospheres and Search Your Feelings (featuring Model 500) are inspiring excursions into pure techno soul. Red Planet definitely a connoisseurs label: before long you'll find yourself tracking down every last record.

70. Global CommunicationPentamerous Metamorphosis

Dedicated1993

Tom Middleton and Mark Pritchard's debut full-length outing as Global Communication, this is often considered a dress rehearsal for their widely feted 76:14. It's actually an extended reworking of Chapterhouse's Blood Music, spun out into ethereal ambient mode, and stands as a great record in its own right. Marathon running times abound, with proto-Boards Of Canada beats and ghosts of an indie rock band slipping in and out of the soundscape.

71. Basic ChannelLyot Rmx

Basic Channel1993

Basic Channel's haunting remix of Vainquer's Lyot masterfully evokes the Martian crater of the same name. An edit made it onto the BCD compilation a few years later, but the twelve-minute original — stretching across a whole side of vinyl — really allows the track to breathe life into an immersive environment all it's own. With those gamma ray synths unfurling in graceful slow-motion, BC's dub chamber habitats remain the perfect metaphor for the deep black of space.

72. Octave OneThe "X" Files

430 West1994

Octave One here also perfectly evoking outer space, only this time from within the cramped confines of an orbital space station. The opening Dema offers a precise, clear cut illustration of the group's compact electronic funk. Further references to Star Trek from a Detroit crew — this time on a Next Generation tip — are everywhere, from Farpoint's spooky garage shuffle to the technoid house of Dominion, and my absolute favorite the freaked out analogue funk of The Neutral Zone.

73. SETISETI

Instinct1994

I know next to nothing about this record, which I bought on sight in the elysian fields of the El CajonMusic Trader (circa 2001). It's a longform ambient work seemingly inspired by the SETI program's search for extraterrestrial life. There's the occasional rhythmic flourish but mostly it's a marathon excursion into atmospheric drift. Nice.

74. 4 HeroParallel Universe

Reinforced1994

Dego and Marc Mac split the atom, beaming 60's/70's astral jazz into the future and back again, splicing the results with their absolute mastery of breakbeat science. At it's most twisted, tracks like Wrinkles In Time and Sounds From The Black Hole posit an entirely new rhythmic vernacular, while the calmer moments — such as Sunspots and Power To Move The Stars — conjure up images of some utopian orbital cloud city. As I've noted before, it's one of my favorite records ever.

75. Model 500Deep Space

R&S1995

Picking up where the previous year's Sonic Sunset left off, Juan Atkins' greatest full-length continues unabated in its pursuit of the celestial. Over half of the record was engineered by Basic Channel's Moritz Von Oswald, with pristine sonics in evidence throughout, ranging from the drum 'n bass moves of Astralwerks to the deconstructed machine funk of Last Transport To Alpha Centauri. His influence can be particularly felt in the dubbed-out minimal techno of Starlight and Lightspeed, and you even get a version of Sonic Sunset's marathon vocal deep house excursion I Wanna Be There, edited down from the nearly twenty-minute running time of the original.

Then there's The Flow, a shot of machine soul right smack in the middle of the record that I swear sounds exactly like the blueprint for Timbaland and The Neptunes' sonic adventures just around the corner. Blink and it could almost be a Kelis song. I've often wondered whether they heard this record back in '95...

76. Planetary Assault SystemsArchives

Peacefrog1995

The first full-length from Luke Slater's minimal side-project pulls together a brace of early material from his ongoing Planetary Funk series of EPs and combines them with four new exclusives. The sleeve a perfect illustration of the grooves found within, with this hard as nails, motorik techno perfectly capturing the spirit of interplanetary travel — or warfare.

77. Space DJzOn Manoeuvres In Uncharted Territories

Infonet1995

Ben Long and Bandulu's Jamie Bissmire get down with their first outing as the Space DJz, trading in both hard techno and tough electro jams throughout its twenty-eight minutes. Perhaps I could have picked their 1999 album On Patrol!, but Celestial Funk — a rough and tumble slab of streetwise electro (and by my estimation the duo's finest moment) — just edges it out for this spot. The three-second refrain sums up its loose, off the cuff charm: Set you free, set you free, set you free!

There were loads of great records on Apollo, the ambient subsidiary of R&S, indeed the Apollo Compilation — a round-up of tracks from various early releases on the label (including Love Craft's awesome Intelligent Univers) — can be chalked up as another record in the "nearly" list.

79. TournesolMoonfunk

R&S1995

Brittle, spangly electronica from Denmark. Think The Black Dog circa Spanners. Every sound, every texture seems to have the timbre of reverberating metal — tempting visions of exotic instrumentation fashioned from wafer-thin sheets of chrome and copper — and all arranged with a breathtakingly nimble touch. Strangely enough, there's even a couple abstract hip hop incursions featuring an MC Panasonique, who I know next to nothing about and may have only surfaced on this album before vanishing forever.

80. PhotekU.F.O./Rings Around Saturn

Photek1995

Spectral drum 'n bass with one foot still in the jungle, this is Photek's paean to the stars. U.F.O. is a claustrophobic sprint through shadowy, paranoid corridors, predicting the atmosphere of his excellent debut full-length Modus Operandi by a couple years. The flipside includes the dreamy landscapes of Rings Around Saturn, with it's strange bird calls and crisp, nimble breakbeats — ghostly strings and a Rhodes pulsing throughout — taking you deep into cosmic jazz territory.

81. Larry HeardAlien

Black Market International1996

The follow up to Heard's pair of Sceneries Not Songs records, Alien is cut from the same cloth: spacious, jazzed-out dynamics in play, operating in downbeat mode as often as the deep house bedrock where his roots lie (even slipping into spells of beatless atmosphere from time to time).

Heard seems to be refracting the ambient house excursions of Sun Electric and The Orb back across the Atlantic, just as they had done with his initial deep house template years ago. Consequently, the dazzling digital disco of The Dance Of Planet X squares the introspective ambience of his contemporary material with his landmark eighties recordings as Mr. Fingers (see Can You Feel It, Beyond The Clouds and Stars for just a few examples).

82. Dom & RolandDynamics/The Planets

Moving Shadow1996

Spooky, razor-edged drum 'n bass. Moving into the late nineties, this is one of the finest tracks of its era. The Planets begins with nearly a minute of beatless atmosphere before its metallic breakbeat comes crashing in, literally chopping through the track, when suddenly the tune drifts back out into pure ambience.

Crumbling astral bodies seem to throb in the distance before slowly being drawn into something resembling a bassline — through sheer centrifugal force of will — and Dom's breakbeat science comes crashing back into the mix. Wraithlike synths seem to shimmer ominously, permeating every corner of the soundscape, while eerie sounds pitched somewhere between gale wind and guttural moan rise out of the darkness. It is very cold in space.

83. DJ SpookyGalactic Funk

Asphodel1996

New York illbient and the flipside of breakbeat science. This four track EP features That Subliminal Kid scratching galaxies (to borrow a phrase from the Death Comet Crew) into oblivion, sliding across the surface of a planetarium like the cave paintings of Altamira set in motion. The title track, with its wild phased Clavinet breakdown, is the highlight here, but also check the beatless string-laden deluge of The Vengeance Of Galaxy 5, which sounds like field recordings of a distant cataclysm at the edge of space recovered from some ancient battered probe.

84. OutkastATLiens

LaFace1996

Southern rap. From before they were a household name. Simon Reynolds once called Elevators Me & YouSun Ra-gone-hip hop. When you're confronted with its eerie smeared organ drift, dubbed-out snare clicks and a hauntingly chanted chorus, well it's pretty hard to argue. You've also got the title track, a masterfully arranged mini-epic that rides a nagging bassline, shining synths and a light-speed-to-infinity filtered vocal snatch — linked with an infectious sing-along chorus — into the Martian sunset.

85. Kevin SaundersonX-Mix: Transmission From Deep Space Radio

Studio !K71997

One of the pivotal moments in my musical life was receiving this mix — as a gift — just after it dropped, opening the doors to Detroit techno and beyond. The first thing you notice is that marathon intro, with DJ Minx announcing you're in deep space over far-out sonics that recall Hendrix's ... And The Gods Made Love, before Kevin "Master Reese" Saunderson backspins into the tribal fury of Bango's Ritual Beating System (Stacey Pullen's absorbing rumination on Olatunji's Drums Of Passion).

The transmission continues through tracks by Detroit figures like Octave One, Carl Craig and Sean Deason, amazing jazzed-out house by Deep Dish (under the banner Chocolate City), Outlander's epochal slab of Belgian hardcore The Vamp (remixed by none other than Master Reese himself), myriad tracks from the Netherlands' Dobre & Jamez and even both sides of a contemporary E-Dancer 12". The wide-open sonics in E-Dancer's World Of Deep perfectly encapsulate everything this mix — and indeed great dance music — is all about.

86. KelisKaleidoscope

Virgin1999

We found her on one of our voyages to the fourth sector, intones Pharrell in the intro, and from then on The Neptunes provide Kelis with loads of brilliant alien soundscapes to cut loose in. The retro-70's strains of Mars (those synths!) recall Stevie Wonder at his most cosmic, while Roller Rink's astral funk has Kelis asking Have you ever thought there might be something out there? Far out, way out, while Pharrell is delivering their firstborn on a NASA space shuttle. Casual references to space are scattered throughout, and Kelis herself shines as an utterly unique (alien?) presence. Rather appropriately, The Neptunes later called their label Star Trak Entertainment.

87. SpacekCurvatia

Island2001

Spectral r&b. In spirit at least, it's like SA-RA before SA-RA: space capsule music (think One Way's Don't Stop) unfurling out into the stars... this is pure machine soul. Every texture so delicate, and Steve Spacek's voice so fragile, the whole record seems to simply glide by in a mist. How Do I Move, with it's technoid pulses cycling and drifting through the soundscape, seems aware of its own ethereal properties. Sex In Zero Gravity.

88. Spacemonkeyz vs. GorillazLaika Come Home

Parlophone2002

The first Gorillaz album gets dubbed out, stretched out and spaced out by the Spacemonkeyz. Possibly even better than the original album, especially for those after a deep sonic fix. Damon Albarn continues on the road to becoming a worldly man (see also Mali Music), with Blur beginning to wind down as a full-time concern. The mood here seems to recall The Special AKA and Ghost Town, that same spectral and spacious sense of dub run through pop's kaleidoscopic fun house. If you listen closely, you can hear the roots for The Good, The Bad & The Queen beginning to take shape...

89. Mitch WalcottEuropa

Tomorrow2002

Exquisite space music on Jeff Mills' Tomorrow label. The liner notes contain extended quotes from 2010 and Kodwo Eshun, while the sounds within bring to mind the solemnity of hard science-fiction. Following the journey of a probe to the titular sixth moon of Jupiter, the album moves through ethereal ambient excursions like Long Journey Of Spacecraft and Views From The Surface into the stark orchestral shades of Reaching The Subsurface Ocean.

Tracks like Drilling Through The Ice and Crash Landing Of Probe jut from the record's calm surface with pure noise to punctuate their titular events, while the atmospheric Sinking Slowly Through The Ice captures an all-encompassing sense of wonder and dread. Descent Towards The Discovery Of Life draws all of these strands together, closing out this deeply special record on a majestic note, it's austere splendor bringing to mind first side of Eno's Apollo: Atmospheres & Soundtracks.

90. Me'Shell NdegéOcelloComfort Woman

Maverick2003

Breathtakingly romantic zero-gravity soul. My absolute favorite record of NdegéOcello's, there's a strong reggaematic current running through most the rhythms here. Liliquoi Moon and Andromeda & The Milky Way mark this out as a space record, shot through with an otherworldly glide and drawing on a deep palette of sound.

There's this one particular synth sound that colors large swathes of the album and makes me flash on Detroit in its magnetic pull. You hear it in the climax of a song like Love Song #3, with its shades of Hendrix circa 1983... A Merman I Should Turn To Be, and the result is almost overwhelmingly powerful. Then there's the blissed out Gaussian blurred flow of Come Smoke My Herb — quite simply a perfect pop song — drifting through space on a solar wind.

91. Kelley PolarLove Songs Of The Hanging Gardens

Environ2005

Three-part-harmony-inflected digital disco. Polar arranged the string section on the revered Metro Area records, and accordingly, this came out on Morgan Geist's Environ imprint. The sleeve's Pillars Of Creation photograph is a dead give away, but the spangly textures and crisp sense of space in songs like Here In The Night and Black Hole betray this tile's cosmic intent. The awesome Matter Into Energy, my favorite moment here, eschews beats altogether in favor of a sumptuous free fall reverie.

92. SA-RA Creative PartnersCosmic Dust/Cosmic Lust

Jazzy Sport2005

As I've said before, I love SA-RA, and the Cosmic Dust/Cosmic Lust double-shot is the crew's finest front-to-back moment. Machine soul in a space capsule stylee, SA-RA perfected a sound that stretches back to the days of Kleeer and Mtume, imbuing it with all the energy of rave and hip hop from the ensuing years. The implicit outer space sonics of those groups is made explicit here (and how!). Their consistently evocative sleeves are a perfect illustration of the spacious sounds found within.

93. Acid Mothers Temple & The Melting Paraiso U.F.O.Have You Seen The Other Side Of The Sky?

Ace Fu2006

Freaked-out space rock from Japan. At times this recalls Amon Düül II, in not only the acid-folk sprawl of Buy The Moon Of Jupiter and Interplanetary Love, but especially the extended nearly thirty-minute sonic mayhem of The Tales Of Solar Sail - Dark Stars In The Dazzling Sky. You couldn't make this stuff up!

94. Kid CudiMan On The Moon: The End Of Day

Universal Motown2009

This one caught me totally off guard at the time, a rap/r&b record that seemed to share a similar spirit with the music of A.R. Kane and Tears For Fears circa The Hurting. Sure, 808s & Heartbreaks might have hinted in the direction of this new wave-inflected r&b, but the Kid ploughs a much deeper furrow.

My World is just one of many mini-epics that seem to draw on Tangerine Dream's soundtrack work as much as the aforementioned new wave and machine soul. The Detroit-inflected techno of Enter Galactic Love Connection Part 1 (think Juan Atkins in Infiniti mode) and the awesome resolute crawl of Alive Nightmare — the synths and guitar shapes of which make me flash on Eno's Another Green World — map out a broad vision of outer/inner space music.

95. Jeff MillsThe Messenger

Third Ear2012

The Wizard has turned his mind to celestial matters on more than one occasion (see X-102 Discovers The Rings Of Saturn, Jupiter Jazz and One Man Spaceship for just a few examples), but this relatively recent one seemed to be a culmination of those obsessions. The subtle inflections of this broad, filmic music sometimes bring to mind his incredible soundtrack for Metropolis.4 A master stroke.

96. Claude YoungCelestial Bodies

Fountain Music2013

Largely ambient LP from revered Detroit DJ Claude Young. His production career has often seemed strangely underrated by the cognoscenti, but the man has built up a serious discography over the years, growing more and more abstract over the course of time. Celestial Bodies trades in similar forms of austere, immersive ambience as Mitch Walcott and Jeff Mills, and tracks like Messier 86 NGC 4406 and Observing The Kuiper Belt bear striking shades of atmospheric depth and splendor. However, there's still a bit of tough machine funk tucked away in Hawking Radiation, harking back to the muscular, abstract techno of Young's past.

97. Kamasi WashingtonThe Epic

Brainfeeder2015

Cosmic jazz on the Sun Ra big band tip. Washington contributed to the jazz foundation of Kendrick Lamar's excellent To Pimp A Butterfly, and here he stretches out over three discs with an ambitious song cycle that recalls the wide-open sides of figures like Charles Mingus, Pharoah Sanders and of course Sun Ra on Impulse! during the glory days of astral jazz. Incredibly dense and daring, this record stands on its own as an adventurous, extended slab of visionary modern jazz.

98. Dâm-FunkInvite The Light

Stones Throw2015

L.A.'s Damon Riddick expands on the spaced-out currents found in his earlier work with a sprawling g-funk blast that comes on like an intergalactic broadcast picked up on some strange nocturnal frequency. The record is bracketed by two transmissions from Junie Morrison that bring to mind the extended conceptual works of Parliament/Funkadelic, and accordingly, the scale here seems larger than it ever has before on a Dâm-Funk record. Where his earlier tiles like Burgundy City and Toeachizown were intimate, largely solo affairs, this album ropes in an extended cast ranging from hip hop icons like Snoop Dogg and Q-Tip to old school veterans like Jody Watley and Leon Sylvers, and even alternative rockers like Ariel Pink and Flea!

Still, the remit is very much on the electronic funk tip, and tracks like Missing U and The Hunt & Murder Of Lucifer continue to develop Riddick's singular take on machine soul. Similarly, uptempo excursions Floating On Air and O.B.E. (which brings to mind The Orb's track of nearly the same name) advance this fascinating side of the man's music that feels like his own distinctly original take on techno, as if arrived upon via a totally different set of circumstances (Arabian Prince and The Egyptian Lover being two of the most obvious touchstones) but still rocking a righteous mash up of Kraftwerk and George Clinton. Seeing him perform at The Casbah with a live band (on the night of this record's release, as a matter of fact) was a real treat, and without a doubt one of the greatest shows I've ever had the pleasure to witness.

99. Nik TurnerSpace Fusion Odyssey

Purple Pyramid2015

Ethereal space rock from last year by one of the original architects of Hawkwind (its sleeve a play on that band's X In Search Of Space). This largely instrumental, free-wandering excursion at times recalls early Ozric Tentacles. Featuring another extended cast working together in the studio, this ties together whole strands of the space rock community with appearances from Gong's Gilli Smyth and Steve Hillage (yet again!), Amon Düül II's John Weinzierl, Brainticket's Joel Vandroogenbroeck and even Robbie Krieger of The Doors, plus fusioneers like Billy Cobham and Soft Machine's John Etheridge, not to mention wild card appearances by Nick Garratt of punk band UK Subs and Die Krupps' industrial architect Jürgen Engler!

100. David BowieBlackstar

ISO2016

Bowie's final album-length statement, teeming with loose and free-flowing jazz inflections. It's been compared to late-period Scott Walker in its inscrutable mood and abstract shapes, but is very much a culmination of everything he's been up to for the last twenty-odd years.

Inspired in part by the freewheeling spirit of Kendrick Lamar's To Pimp A Butterfly5, Blackstar finds Bowie collaborating one last time with the indomitable Tony Visconti on a sequence of seven songs that swoop and shudder within a lush, three-dimensional soundscape. The record cycles gracefully between disparate modes, from the downbeat crawl of Lazarus and Dollar Days to the gliding rhythms of lead single 'Tis A Pity She Was A Whore. Those hyper-syncopated, rolling beats on Sue Or In A Season Of Crime even touch on the jungle-inflected corridors of 1997's Earthling, an album that's remained close to my heart as very my first Bowie record. The gorgeous, album-closing I Can't Give Everything Away plays like a touching goodbye letter to the world.

Blackstar is utterly magnificent, a strange and sublime masterpiece. As the record that inspired this wide and wonderful trip in the first place, it serves as a fitting conclusion to our journey. Ventures to the vast beyond, in the end, take us back home to our tiny blue planet — spinning lonely in the cosmos — and all the sonic treasures held within.

This all germinated from an exchange between Sari (my wife), Andrew (my brother) and myself in which we each compiled our top 100 records of all time and then had a little party to review the lists while listening to bits of the records in them. It was a great excuse to talk music and I daresay that we all had a blast trawling through each other's favorites. It was during the process of putting together my own that my love for writing about music began to rekindle and I vowed to myself to bring back this site. I suppose then that it's only appropriate that I use it to kick things off again here at Parallax Moves.

This list represents my absolute favorite one hundred records of all-time, including albums, EPs and singles. Truth be told, a couple borderline compilations sneak in too! The idea was to select the records that essentially form my musical bedrock, the very core of my taste in music, and in a sense, the lens through which I tend to hear everything else.

It can be so tempting to only include influential, important records, to lean too heavily on the accepted canon of (insert genre here) classics rather than those records one actually loves most. The flipside of that coin is to veer too deeply into the obscure, or all those neat little records one discovers along the way. I found that the trick was to ruthlessly select (from my initial pile) only the records that: 1. Had a crucial impact on me (be it immediate or gradually, over time), 2. Are front-to-back amazing, and 3. I still listen to all the time.

This narrowed the field considerably, but there were still about a dozen too many records. Eliminating those was probably the most difficult part of the process, but its amazing just how much the list started to write itself at that point. To be honest, it was a bit of rush seeing it all come together. The result is a deeply personal selection, but I think that's the only way to go. In the end, I can promise you that every record here is a stone cold killer...

The Parallax 100 has recently been augmented by the next 100 records, which rounds out the set to an even 200. To start from #200, click here.

100. HeldonÉlectronique Guerilla

Disjuncta1974

French synth wizardry from Richard Pinhas on Heldon's first odyssey, the driving pulse of which marks it out as a remarkably physical permutation of space music proper. Tracks like Back To Heldon and Northernland Lady seem to soundtrack actual landscapes you could touch and feel, wander and get lost in. Gilles Deleuze even makes a cameo on Ouais, Marchais, Mieux Qu'en 68 Ex: Le Voyageur, the one track to feature the band in full.

99. Man ParrishSpecial Disconet Remixes

Ram's Horn1983

Man Parrish produced loads of great records throughout the eighties, but this wildly mutated remix of Hip Hop, Be Bop Don't Stop is a multi-jointed electro monster. Its rubberband bassline and depth charging 808s are remarkably loose within the context of electro, a genre typically defined by it's (intentional) rigidity.

98. Barış Manço2023

Yavuz1975

Psychedelic, spaced out funk from this giant of Anatolian music. Occupying that nexus between acid rock and straight up prog (think Paul Kantner's Blows Against The Empire), it bests all other contenders by merit of its singular sound and vision. Those massive, supremely deranged synths come as an added bonus.

97. Azealia Banks1991

Interscope2012

The greatest record to come out of the perennial clash between house and hip hop, a sound that has remarkably crashed back into the mainstream over the last five-odd years. The vibe here brings to mind certain records on the Strictly Rhythm imprint, also things like Hateful Head Helen, but the whole of this EP is thoroughly up to date and leans brashly toward the future.

96. Howlin' WolfHowlin' Wolf

Chess1962

The Rocking Chair Album. By my estimation the wildest electric blues LP, even outstripping his own supremely fuzzed out work on Chess' head-oriented subsidiary Cadet Concept. Wolf here sounds hungry as he attacks each tune with the ferocious charm he was renowned for, wrestling their melodies into a dense, churning turmoil of rock hard rhythm and blues.

95. Grace JonesNightclubbing

Island1981

One of the many great records laid down in Nassau by the brilliant Compass Point All Stars, this one benefits from Ms. Jones' compelling presence front and center. Splitting the difference between disco, post punk and dub, this is pristine, chrome-surfaced boogie on ten-inch rubber wheels. Just given the lavish Deluxe Edition treatment as well, with an unreleased cover version of Gary Numan's Me! I Disconnect From You tossed into the bargain. Grace's music is essential.

94. TigerMe Name Tiger

RAS1986

Digital dancehall. Generally recognized as a genre best served by the 7" single, this sterling LP is an exception to that rule. Tiger himself is responsible for just about every element on the record, from the toasting on down to the beats, resulting in a super-tight — and endlessly playable — ten track selection on which his larger-than-life personality shines immensely.

93. Nav KatzeNever Mind The Distortion

SSR1994

Japanese pop outfit remixed by the early heavyweights of British abstract techno: The Black Dog, Aphex Twin, Ultramarine and Global Communication. The ladies' heavenly vocals weave through these warped re-workings of their original compositions, informed by the curious slant that each producer brings to bear on the material. Truly otherworldly in every possible sense, the results simply sound like nothing else around.

92. Mulatu AstatkeFekade Amde MaskalEthio Jazz

Amha1974

Ethiopian Jazz. Discovered this via the excellent Éthiopiques series on Buda Musique and just had to track down the original LP. Mulatu's band so fluid here, the murky soundscape so dense with rich detail, that the record itself seems to conjure up a ghostly mirage of some smoky dancehall in Addis Ababa, thick with atmosphere and hovering three feet off the ground.

91. N-TyceHush Hush Tip/Root Beer Float

Wild Pitch1993

Wicked downbeat hip hop on the cusp between day-glo jazz rap and the dark blunted zeitgeist just around the corner (see Black Moon, Cypress Hill and the Wu-Tang Clan — the RZA and 4th Disciple of which actually produced this record), and managing to deliver the best of both worlds. N-Tyce's flow is smooth as can be and Method Man on the hook a particularly inspired touch.

90. Mark Stewart + MaffiaMark Stewart

Mute1987

Sampladelic, hard-edged post punk. The Maffia backing is incendiary and Mark Stewart explosive, veering between rage and sadness in equal measure. Also notable for spawning Stranger Than Love, the dub of which was perpetrated by none other than a very young Smith & Mighty. Indeed, pre-echoes of nineties Bristol seem to reverberate throughout the entirety of this fierce, uncompromising record.

89. Althea & DonnaUptown Top Ranking

Lightning1977

A peak-period Joe Gibbs production that leaps out of the speakers with a rude zig-zagging synth and rock hard backing by The Mighty Two. Althea & Donna still manage to steal the show with their raw, infectious delivery on this absolutely massive (#1 in the U.K.!) pop reggae number. I've often thought that this tune must have had a profound shaping influence on The Slits, in both sound and spirit.

88. WarThe World Is A Ghetto

United Artists1972

Strung out fourth world voodoo funk. Captures that feeling in late August when summer's lost its luster and seems like it's never going to end; sun-glazed buildings and steam rising off the streets. A definitive L.A. record, if I may be so bold. The band's interplay here so dexterous (City, Country, City) and group chants so obsessive (Beetles In The Bog) that nearly every tune feels like a mantra. This is my Marquee Moon.

87. Black RiotA Day In The Life

Fourth Floor1988

Seminal N.Y. House and Todd Terry's finest moment of patchwork brilliance. Owing to his background in freestyle music, he was the first house producer to truly grasp the possibilities of hip hop and consequently seemed to approach all of his early traxx with a wildstyle mindset. This was already over a decade old (an eternity in the nineties) by the time I first got to hear it, but it blew my mind nonetheless. If there's one record that I'd like to think my life sounds like, this is it.

86. Thomas Leer4 Movements

Cherry Red1981

Globetrotting synth pop from one of the pioneers of the form. Looking past the gloriously icy climate of his peers (this the era of Gary Numan, Fad Gadget and The Human League), Leer establishes a warm and astonishingly nimble sound here. Splitting the difference between Kraftwerk and Tonto's Expanding Head Band, while adding a bit of eighties pan-global jet set atmosphere for good measure (think Club Paradise and Jewel Of The Nile), this plays like a Balearic record out of some parallel universe. In ours, it wouldn't even occur to people to make something like this until about fifteen years later (see Jimi Tenor, Patrick Pulsinger, Uwe Schmidt et al.). Utterly indispensable for any electronic pop lover.

85. MotörheadMotörhead

Chiswick1977

Bracingly intense, white-knuckled biker metal. Despite their reputation as speed-metal pioneers (their very name a slang term for speed freaks), on this, their very first record, the hangover of hard rock's James Brown-as-played-by-cavemen beats endures, informing the entirety of its blistering mid-section: one of my favorite rock 'n roll trips of all time, sounding like a two lane stretch of highway cutting deep into the Mojave desert.

84. Underground ResistanceRiot EP

Underground Resistance1991

UR in their undeniable prime, back when Jeff Mills and Rob Noise were still kicking it in the group with Mad Mike Banks and the crew came off like Detroit's very own Public Enemy. I love nearly everything they've put out, from space jazz to computer-age electro to no-nonsense techno — all of it was extraordinary — but they never hit harder than when they were intensifying Belgian hardcore. On the Riot EP, UR's conceptual brilliance collides with their Hard Music From A Hard City aesthetic, resulting in their definitive statement.

83. Billie Ray Martin4 Ambient Tales

Apollo1993

In which the German dancefloor chanteuse collaborates with The Grid for a double-EP of ambient blues. In the process, she briefly inhabits — maybe even invents — the role of ecstasy age post-canyon troubadour (amplified here by the presence of BJ Cole on pedal steel), fragile and coming down from the shattered heights of the rave dream. This fertile landscape would eventually provide sanctuary to artists like Beth Orton, Dido and Dot Allison, while stretching outward to color the sensibilities of projects like Broadcast and The Beta Band. The results here are as true to her vision of dark electronic soul as she would ever get and practically define the word majestic.

82. The English BeatI Just Can't Stop It U.S. Version

Sire1980

New wave ska-pop, played with clockwork precision by The Beat. Tropical, breezy numbers like Hands Off... She's Mine and Rough Rider rule the day, although there's a definite undercurrent of dread beneath all of this day-glo pop, rising to the surface in Twist & Crawl and even Mirror In The Bathroom's unresolved paranoia. The U.S. version of this record is the one you want, as it includes two crucial extra cuts: Ranking Full Stop and a cover version of The Miracles' Tears Of A Clown, both of which add an extra dimension (and loads of charm) to the record.

81. SA-RA Creative PartnersCosmic Dust/Cosmic Lust

Jazzy Sport2005

Machine Soul twisted to the nth degree. SA-RA were often at their best when they didn't even seem to be trying, and this two-part EP (that only ever surfaced in Japan) might be the best example. Instrumentals like Jumbo and Enter Sex Slop beam two decades worth of hip hop-infused r'n'b into deep space, while Love Stomp and Wonderful (the alien descendant of Stevie Wonder's 70's records) ply a sort of warped astral jazz. And the two ballads (sung from a space capsule), Intoxicated and We Can Do Anything, stand among the finest songs they've penned. It's a shame that Butterscotch (aka Frequencies), possibly their single greatest moment (and one that would have felt right at home in this company), remains unreleased.

80. Thelonious MonkGenius Of Modern Music, Volume One

Blue Note1951

Early works by the jazz giant, recorded during his very first sessions as band leader. This well before his stellar run on Riverside and Columbia, which resulted in a flurry of great albums like Brilliant Corners and Solo Monk. Captured here is the initial supernova that eventually went on to generate those later works, shining as they do like stars in the firmament. A wild and intensely cerebral vision of jazz that finds careening bebop taken to logical abstraction.

79. Manuel GöttschingE2-E4

Inteam GmbH1984

Manuel Göttsching, krautrock guitarist extraordinaire, creates one of the great synth lines and then proceeds to construct an hour-long jam around the ebb and flow of his machines. The result is a marathon of spaced out proto-techno that gradually seemed to weave its way through the very DNA of electronic music in the ensuing decades. I first heard him on Terranova's Tokyo Tower way back in good old 1997, and he's remained one of my favorite guitarists ever since. His guitar sound here, as always, is exquisite.

78. RomanthonyThe Wanderer

Prescription1994

Definitive statement from one of garage's true auteurs. This is supremely lush and soulful. A saga spread across four radically different versions, each managing to simultaneously contrast and complement the other, with the hypnotic electro pulse of CD Remix #9 and Fusion Dubb's cascading instrumental bliss running perpendicular to the wild pitch madness of Let Da Rhythm Move U, while the opening Journey Man Thump itself is extraordinarily haunting.

77. AssociatesSulk

Associates1982

A luminescent nocturnal paradise, and the precise point of intersection between post punk and new pop. Alan Rankine and Billy MacKenzie drape sheet after sheet of sound onto a staggering pileup of impenetrable texture that they somehow manage to mutate into a breathtaking sequence of fully formed, brilliant tunes. Billy MacKenzie's soaring, operatic vocals are about the only ones you could imagine successfully cutting through these densely populated soundscapes.

76. Mental CubeChile Of The Bass Generation

Debut1990

A pre-Future Sound Of LondonDougans and Cobain get down to business with the title track, a rolling breakbeat monster, but the centerpiece is undoubtedly Q, an absolutely gorgeous peak-era rave anthem. As great as all of their later FSOL output was (Accelerator and ISDN among my favorites), their early records have a certain ravishing intensity, a rough-hewn charge, and this one is their masterpiece.

75. Fela Ransome Kuti & Africa 70Expensive Shit

Editions Makossa1975

Afrobeat icon's mightiest record, from that blistering offensive he ran during the seventies, a period when the man was simply a force of nature on a serious roll. The title track was inspired by a police raid on the Kalakuta Republic (the story of which is the stuff of legend), but it's the insouciant brilliance of b-side Water Get No Enemy that quietly sneaks up to steal the show and push this record out above the stiff competition. As the man once said, Music is the weapon of the future.

74. ChicC'est Chic

Atlantic1978

The quintessential disco LP, and possibly the greatest, catches The Chic Organization in the middle of their late 70's winning streak: a period when they could do no wrong. It's lush, peak-era disco like Happy Man and I Want Your Love (not to mention the immortal Le Freak) that seem to be the obvious bounty here, yet the leisurely Savoir Faire (sounding like a lost instrumental from the Superfly soundtrack) and gorgeous balladry of At Last I Am Free — almost undisclosed moments of pure elegance — match all those songs for beauty, with everything blending together to make this record such an undeniably strong one.

73. Herbie HancockSextant

Columbia1973

Pure, elemental space jazz, in which gravity simply ceases to be a factor. This is the gateway record between Mwandishi's longform electric grooves and the full-on jazz funk of Head Hunters. The presence of one Dr. Patrick Gleason, working the ARPs, pushes this recording into the realm of pure tech jazz. A delirious odyssey into the deep black void of space and an obvious ancestor to later like-minded projects such as Galaxy 2 Galaxy, Innerzone Orchestra and Fretless AZM.

72. Roy HarperStormcock

Harvest1971

Four elegiac folk suites that burn with a white hot intensity. Everything here suffused with heartache and dread, yet staunchly refusing to ever fully give into the darkness. Harper's mournful vocals and spidery guitar weave their way through the orchestra's towering Gothic architecture, these great vaulting spires from which one can but observe the rolling, desolate tundra laid out below.

71. Kemet CrewChampion Jungle Sound

Kemet1995

Categorically fierce ragga jungle from the golden age of rinsin' amens. Masterminds James and Mark X took the proper name for ancient Egypt to christen both their label and crew, all of whom are present here (plus Remarc, in a blistering cameo appearance). Tearing breakbeats are the order of the day, with subsonic bass charges and a militant atmosphere pervading the whole of this furious, uncompromising LP.

70. KelelaCut 4 Me

Fade To Mind2013

Dreamy post-grime r'n'b, moments of which make me think alternately of Detroit and The Prodigy. This a three-way collaboration between the Fade To Mind and Night Slugs crews (both dealers in dark electronic instrumentals) and Kelela, who lends her ethereal vocals to these already otherworldly backing tracks. The whole affair feels deeply surreal, as if this were a music heard through the lingering mists of a dream. Technically a mixtape, as an album-length statement it excels.

69. Wreckx-n-EffectRump Shaker

MCA1992

New Jack Swing. Teddy Riley's greatest moment, the Teddy 2 mix far superior to the album version. With the inclusion of that piano twinkling on the breeze, easing the tension of an interminable sax line from The Darkest Light, the whole thing is pushed to perfection as the groove's mesmerizing sway begins to lift into low orbit. I remember hearing this on the radio for the first time, as an 11 year old, and thinking that it sounded like a mirage in the desert (pyramids and palms dancing on the horizon). It wasn't until I finally tracked the record down, years later, that I realized what the song was actually about!

68. VirgoVirgo

Radical1989

Sublime deep house from Chicago. Simply perfect, everything in its right place. Do You Know Who You Are and School Hall are among the most achingly beautiful songs ever written, while Ride and In A Vision map infinity: true hall of mirrors music. I'd been into house music for ages before finally managing to discover this thanks to a hot tip from Woebot, whose exceptional writing about music was a revelation, and for that I will forever be grateful.

67. Elton JohnTumbleweed Connection

DJM1971

Elton and Bernie Taupin, at this point still firmly in singer-songwriter mode, deliver their country western concept album. Almost musical-esque in execution, each song seems to follow one character while the next will drift on to focus on another (I've always recognized a kindred spirit in Come Down In Time). A front to back masterpiece with some of their most glorious songs; that it's almost obscure these days is a shame.

66. Don CherryDon Cherry

Horizon1975

A dense, hallucinatory vision of fourth world jazz. Don Cherry's crystal-clear tone cuts through this mercurial brew of boundless depth, a mesh of struck bells, electric piano, tambura, bass and percussion. Pure Ocean Of Sound music. Frank Lowe's presence here a revelation, his pellucid tenor licks shimmering like the very surface of the water.

65. Wailing SoulsThe Wailing Souls

Studio One1975

Superb roots reggae LP on Coxsone Dodd's Studio One imprint. The Wailing Souls are one of the mightiest vocal groups of all time, their harmonies among the great elemental sounds in music, managing to effortlessly capture the feeling of pure joy and then whip around to endless longing in but a moment.

64. Sun PalaceWinning

Passion1983

Eighties jazz funk one-off. It's 1981: Keith O'Connell and Mike Collins, two British session men, get down in the studio with a Prophet 5 synth, Fender Rhodes, CR-78 rhythm box and electric bass, churning out this motorik bit of smooth jazz onto a demo tape and sounding completely out of time (think Hall & Oates and Carl Craig stuck in an elevator, making elevator music, and you won't be far off). The duo spent years trying to get a label to release it, until Passion Records (the soon-to-be parent label of Jumpin' & Pumpin') finally pressed it to wax directly from the original demo tape and gave them the epic name Sun Palace. The record wound up as a Loft Classic, and the rest is history.

63. KelisWanderland

Virgin2001

Remarkably flawless longform work of pristine machine soul, produced by The Neptunes just as they were surfing their creative peak and released a matter of months after the first N*E*R*D album. Like the original electronic incarnation of that record, it was tragically buried at the time (never even receiving a U.S. release in this case). Still, a bunch of us bought the imports and played them obsessively. Of all the vocalists that The Neptunes worked with, Kelis always seemed to best articulate the Star Trak vision — that intriguing mix of stoned ennui and star-child optimism — and nowhere better than on this record's cosmic denouement.

62. Octave OneThe Living Key To Images From Above

430 West1997

Moody, half-lit Detroit techno. This album links together two EPs from the preceding year: The Living Key and, you guessed it, Images From Above, tacking on the absorbingly lush Burujha to round out the set. Not a famous record, but an essential one. The sound that the Burden Brothers achieved during this era is utterly captivating: arcing fractals of percussion entwine mathematically precise drum patterns while shards of synthetic texture pierce vast burnished soundscapes, splashes of melodic color drifting wraithlike out of the darkness. Every element so modest, so low key, yet the combination is ruthlessly magnetic.

61. Genaside IINarra Mine/Sirens Of Acre Lane

Hardcore Urban Music1990

An absolute beast of a record, in which monumental waves of pressure build and build over endless, rolling breakbeats. Narra Mine is a lavishly melancholic stretch of widescreen ardkore, while the flipside's nightmare strains of urban paranoia rise like steam from twilight city streets. Guns of Brixton, indeed. Sharon Williams wails like a banshee and Killerman Archer's maniacal, rapid-fire toasting amplifies the tension every moment he's on the mic. Pure dread.

60. The Velvet UndergroundThe Velvet Underground

MGM1969

Sixties garage rock from New York, made gently with liquid guitars. Where the Velvets' rockers used to pound, they now glide smoothly, with gorgeous folk numbers being the order of the day. The Murder Mystery, their final concession to the avant garde, is an engrossing dive into the subconscious.

59. Françoise HardyFrançoise Hardy

Vogue1965

Breezy French pop, and one of the greatest pure pop records ever. Sounding like ribbons of sunlight shimmering through stained glass, this is daydream music to fall in love to on a summer afternoon. The reluctant icon is accompanied here by the Charles Blackwell Orchestra, whose inventive flourishes provide a swooning, sumptuous palette of sound for Hardy to wistfully inhabit with inimitable style and grace.

58. Antonio Carlos JobimJobim

MCA1972

Lush, haunting orchestral environments crafted by bossanova's greatest composer. A seventies record through and through, this is an incredibly heavy listening experience. Songs stretch out over vast uncharted terrain, every corner of the soundscape cloaked in rich detail. There are entire worlds transcribed within the grooves of this record.

57. Martin CircusDisco Circus

Prelude1979

French disco, prefiguring the likes of Daft Punk and Cassius by some fifteen years. Martin Circus were a rock band that drifted into disco's orbit for a couple albums, one of which spawned the original fourteen-minute version of this tune. Here, it gets reworked by the legendary François Kevorkian into a dazzling maximalist affair, crammed with nearly every sound you could imagine and capturing disco's essence within its shining seven minutes. The b-side, I've Got A Treat, is an infectiously sleazy bit of motorik Euro disco.

56. PrinceFor You

Warner Bros.1978

Half-lit bedroom disco from the nascent superstar. Maybe not as spectacularly widescreen as his staggering run of eighties records, there's still something very special about the sound here that draws you in. In Love and Soft And Wet have a deft, almost dainty, rhythmic touch to them, while ballads like Crazy You and So Blue sound improbably low key amidst his considerable slow jam repertoire. The undoubted climax is I'm Yours, an epic prog/funk workout that closes out the record in a thrilling crash of thunder, pointing gamely toward the future.

55. UGKRidin' Dirty

Jive1996

Bun B and Pimp C loom large over the history of Southern rap, having been in the game since virtually day one, and Ridin' Dirty is their ornately detailed masterpiece. The whole record glides in graceful slow motion, Pimp C and N.O. Joe's velvet-cushioned production forming a plush foundation for UGK's elliptical rhymes to dance over. An affinity with one DJ Screw can be felt throughout the blurred, spectral grooves of this LP, and nowhere more than the ghostly twilight vision of 3 In The Mornin'.

54. John ColtraneSun Ship

Impulse!1965/1971

Late-period Coltrane. These sessions, from 1965 (although the record itself was only posthumously released in 1971), are among the last to feature his classic quartet with McCoy Tyner, Jimmy Garrison and Elvin Jones. True space jazz in every sense, with Coltrane blasting through the stratosphere, slipping into zero gravity and back again as Elvin Jones pounds out the propulsion for this interplanetary starship's travels.

53. Zap PowRiver

Zap Pow1977

Psychedelic dub reggae 7", produced by Lee "Scratch" Perry at the Black Ark and at the peak of his powers. This sun-baked, hallucinatory underwater excursion seems to rise from the immense bass pressure of the titular river's bed, where everything churns and tumbles in a great slow-motion whirlpool, sucking you ever deeper into the hypnotic abyss.

52. Led ZeppelinLed Zeppelin III

Atlantic1970

Legendary rock band at their most arcane and mystical, veering from the hard blues of their first two records into a sort of unheimlich folk balladry. The proto-metal is still there — Immigrant Song, Celebration Day and Out On The Tiles — but now filtered through a medieval lens only occasionally hinted at before. That's The Way and Tangerine are two of their most bewitching acoustic numbers, while the majestic sway of Friends remains my absolute favorite moment in their oeuvre.

51. Shivkumar SharmaRaga Madhuvanti

HMV1975

This mesmerizing Indian classical recording is quite simply magnificent. Shivkumar Sharma a true visionary and master of the form. His playing on the santoor never fails to be thoroughly captivating: hearing him work his magic is like watching someone coax time to a standstill. The added touch of those flickering, gently swaying rhythms make this my absolute favorite record of his.

50. David BowieLow

RCA Victor1977

Bowie in Berlin, taking on aspects of minimalism and Krautrock while transforming his plastic soul sound into something even more robotic in the process. Side one is crammed with strange, paranoid pop songs and shimmering instrumentals, while side two stretches out into an ambient landscape of Europe endlessness. This era of Bowie's (detailed in Bowie In Berlin: A New Career In A New Town, an excellent read) is ceaselessly fascinating to me, and remains a conduit to so much amazing music, amidst which this record more than holds its own as a masterpiece.

49. Eddie PalmieriExploration: Salsa-Descarga-Jazz

Coco1978

Far-out salsa, shot through with an unyielding sense of cosmic jazz exploration. Eddie Palmieri, often referred to as the sun of Latin music, has a great many first-rate records to choose from, but this one is my favorite (with Vamonos Pa'l Monte running a close second). Pulling together some of his wildest studio experiments (Cobarde's crazed ten minute salsa pulse and the almost modern classical Random Thoughts) with marathon live workouts recorded at the University of Puerto Rico (Chocolate Ice Cream and The Mod Scene), this record essays some of the man's outermost sonic precincts. Those improbable zero-gravity breaks on Condiciones Que Existen's low-slung barrio funk are a particularly impressive touch.

48. Billie HolidaySolitude

Verve1952

Gorgeous vocal jazz shearing into proto-soul territory. Having informed so much great music throughout the years, it still remains entirely unmatched on its own terms. The very sound of this record is enchanting, infused as it is with pure depth and splendor. Billie Holiday, here still clear-voiced and resplendent (before the ravages of time and hard living took their toll), remains the greatest vocal presence jazz has ever seen. A record to lose yourself in.

47. Psyche/BFCElements 1989-1990

Planet E1990/1996

Majestic early techno relics from Detroit's Carl Craig, back when he was just a fresh-faced kid trying to make his mark on the culture. Each and every track would be a highlight in any other context, while in present company they all flow into one extended hypnotic sequence. Moody dancefloor burners like Crackdown and From Beyond flow effortlessly into the glorious breakbeat release of Please Stand By and out toward the elegiac ambient house of How The West Was Won, while the peerless Neurotic Behavior still sounds like a record from another age... wholly timeless and too magnificent for words.

46. SuicideSuicide: Alan Vega · Martin Rev

Antilles1980

No Wave duo get atmospheric with Ric Ocasek in the producer's chair, stretching the sounds of the debut's most sumptuous passages out across the entirety of their second full-length. Diamonds, Fur Coat, Champagne sets the stage with a casually ethereal groove, while the duo map their sound's spaciest precincts in the eerie freeform calm of Las Vegas Man and Harlem.

45. The Isley BrothersThe Heat Is On

T-Neck1975

Long-running legends riding the crest of their mid-seventies 3 + 3 era, arguably the band's peak. Prefigures Bowie and Eno's Berlin-era methodology, in which the uptempo numbers fill out side one while the second is given over to pure atmosphere: in this case melting into a sidelong mix of ambient soul, the ravishing synths of which are exceptionally lush and sun-glazed.

44. Brian EnoBefore And After Science

Island1977

Speaking of which, Eno's Berlin-era album is absolutely essential listening, of a piece with his earlier classic Another Green World (a crucial record for me, just barely outshone by this one). Here, Eno examines the lush vegetation of that world from an entirely different perspective: that of the laboratory (the domain of science), and the elegant precision exercised therein is thoroughly modern. Even as strange almost-pop songs gradually give way to pure ambience, the former seem to inform the latter (and vice versa), melting together in a state of perfect harmony.

43. Arthur RussellIn The Light Of The Miracle

Talkin' Loud1995

By my estimation Arthur Russell's finest moment, fusing the introspective nature of his World Of Echo material with the strange propulsion of his left field disco records like Let's Go Swimming and Wax The Van. This is a vision of the dancefloor that stretches far beyond the walls of the city, out across the great plains and into the deep blue horizon, spreading joyously outward as far as the eye can see.

42. Louis Armstrong & Duke EllingtonRecording Together For The First Time

Roulette Jazz1961

Two old timers who've seen it all finally get a chance to meet up in the studio, laying down crisp re-workings of a bunch of classic Ellington-penned numbers. This is quite possibly the purest glimpse into the very essence of jazz ever put to tape. Even as these two legends swing together like it ain't no thang, they sound for all the world like they're jamming in orbit on the space station.

41. Simple MindsReal To Real Cacophony

Arista1979

Weird new wave. Literally overflowing with ideas and traveling in every direction at once. Spiky rockers like Citizen cut their way out of the murky depths even as moody instrumentals like Film Theme revel in them, while mid-tempo club burners like Premonition crop up to inhabit the space between. Veldt, a maddening slice of pure atmospheric paranoia, even breaks out into a pleasantly menacing skank. For me, an unquestionably crucial record.

40. James BrownHell

Polydor1974

The godfather's dense double-album, rife with an overwhelming sense of seventies dread, yet at the same time home to some of his most gorgeous ballads. The fourteen-minute closing stretch of Papa Don't Take No Mess, one of his greatest extended workouts, is an obvious standout, while the Latin-tinged reworking of Please, Please, Please a hidden gem that hints at the remarkable breadth of this LP. I can't think of another record remotely like it.

39. Jungle BrothersJ. Beez Wit The Remedy

Warner Bros.1993

Skewed hip hop from this visionary Brooklyn crew. If their first LP gave birth to the Native Tongues era then this one effectively laid it to rest. Decomposed beats, subsonic bass pulses and random machine bleeps punctuate these Gaussian blurred samplescapes within which Eugene McDaniels and Public Enemy rub shoulders with The Stooges. The results are a kaleidoscopic hallucination of hip hop: bizarre, druggy and in the end, their crowning achievement.

38. SWVCan We

Jive1997

Nineties r'n'b. A glistening, four-dimensional soundscape that seems to morph and gyrate like liquid clockwork. Here, the swingbeat girl group hook up with Timbaland and Missy "Misdemeanor" Elliott (at an early peak, when everything they touched turned gold) to produce this casually futuristic one off — and a highlight for all parties involved — realigning SWV for the chrome age.

37. MoodymannBlack Mahogani

Peacefrog2004

Sub-conscious deep house, where the border between electronic and live instrumentation decomposes to the point that its hard to tell where the programming stops and the band begins. I'm Doing Fine embodies this seamless symbiosis, while the juke joint boogie of traxx like Shades Of Jae and Back At Bakers On Livernois form a perfect counterpoint to the spectral jazz found in Holiday and I Need You So Much. Riley's Song, no more than a bassline groaning in slow motion beneath layers of ghostly atmosphere, nearly manages to steal the show, while the Mahogani 9000/Black Mahogani suite that closes the album (and memorably quotes Eddie and Priest from Superfly) could go on forever and I wouldn't mind.

36. Ray CharlesYes Indeed!

Atlantic1959

The original soul man's second full-length is an indispensable glimpse into his signature vision of rhythm & blues. Exquisite backing vocals from the ever-reliable Raelettes add a swaying finesse to this already remarkable material, sweeping from the spectral crawl of It's All Right to the carefree shuffle of Swanee River Rock, through the rave up threat of Leave My Woman Alone and on to the back door blues of Blackjack. The all-encompassing breadth of vision outlined in this sequence of fourteen flawless tunes is truly staggering.

35. 4 HeroParallel Universe

Reinforced1994

Dego and Marc Mac, operating out of their studio in Dollis Hill (located next door to The Future Sound Of London's), charted rave's trajectory from the intensity of its hardcore origins through the depths of the darkside, ultimately arriving at this distant outpost of interplanetary jungle. Yet even as they connect with the lush space jazz of Galaxy 2 Galaxy and Herbie Hancock, they still manage to retain the rhythmic danger from even the most twisted of their earlier records. If anything, that fury gets amplified in Wrinkles In Time and Sounds From The Black Hole: astonishing displays of breakbeat science as you're ever likely to find.

34. Scott WalkerScott 4

Philips1969

Avant garde crooner's finest moment. An existential rumination on the certainty of death and dues, and a flawless work of orchestral grandeur. The Seventh Seal and The Old Man's Back Again are so majestic that they practically beggar belief on first listen, while the fragile moments (Boy Child, Duchess) are among the most exquisite songs he's ever written.

33. King TubbyDub From The Roots

Total Sounds1974

Awesome dub reggae LP from this pioneering architect of the form. The drums splash, the hi-hats skip and the bass cuts massive caverns beneath a soundscape in which everything exists as texture. This is a dusty, planet-shaking sound: simultaneously futuristic and ancient. Invasion, kicking off with those rude synth bleeps, could soundtrack the boarding of Zion in William Gibson's Neuromancer. In a word, massive.

32. Captain Beefheart & His Magic BandSafe As Milk

Buddah1967

The fabled outsider checks in with his first LP of abstract blues, burning with raw garage punk fury and a set of unforgettable tunes. A remarkably early intervention for this sort of rootsy swagger (The Stones still mining psychedelia in '67), at times so dynamically gnarled that it seems to reach forward and predict the next ten years of rock's progression.

31. Smith & MightyAlice PereraDJ-Kicks EP

Studio !K71998

Bristol trip hop from the originators of the form. Nearly all of their records are splendid, but this little EP, recorded as a companion to their brilliant DJ-Kicks mix on Studio !K7, distills everything great about the crew into one exceedingly lush slice of perfection. Like some hazy afternoon vista bathed in mist, this sun-glazed melancholia feels like a daydream that lasts deep into the night. The remix on the flip is a bit of storming U.K. hip hop, featuring an uncredited MC Kelz. I've always loved the way that each version samples a bit of vocal from the other. This is one of those records that never fails to bring the memories flooding back, and along with the accompanying mix was the soundtrack to the better part of my final year in high school.

30. Neu!Neu! '75

Brain1975

Motorik Krautrock speeding down an endless stretch of highway, this also possesses some of their gentlest moments. Seeland, in particular, sounds exactly like the sunrise looks when you're up early enough to watch the world wake. The flipside of the coin boasts Hero and After Eight, two exhilarating proto-punk onslaughts that achieve a sort of rock 'n roll perfection.

29. Marvin GayeHere, My Dear

Tamla1978

Spaced out smooth soul. The confessional nature of the material — focusing on the disintegration of Gaye's marriage to Anna Gordy — marks it out as unique, especially within the context of late 70's boogie-tinged soul. I've often felt that parts of this record (especially A Funky Space Reincarnation and Is That Enough) share an affinity with certain records by The Orb, prefiguring that same extra-dimensional sense of gently shimmering psychedelia.

28. Rammellzee vs. K-RobBeat Bop

Tartown1983

Early hip hop's mad visionary stretches out in this loping sidelong groove, coming on like a hip hop update of Sly Stone's Africa Talks To You/The Asphalt Jungle. Jean-Michel Basquiat's production is crisp and spacious as his diagram on the sleeve, and no other MC had more claim to be dropping science than Rammellzee.

27. Kate BushThe Dreaming

EMI1982

Strange, cutting edge art-pop constructed with heavy use of the Fairlight sampler by this visionary British songstress. Kate is incredibly moving throughout, her voice a controlled fury at the center of these fiercely brilliant songs, wherein she deftly coalesces shards of pure sound into form much like a nebula gradually becomes a star. Choosing highlights is virtually impossible, for as surely as each song differs wildly from the other, they're simultaneously all of a piece, the jigsaw edges of each locking with the others into a seamless fabric of inner space.

26. Milton Nascimento & Lô BorgesClube Da Esquina

Odeon1972

Landmark Brazilian double album, brimming with pure majesty and splendor. Grounded in Tropicália and samba, there are also deep currents of acid-psyche and even space rock running through its core. The Clube Da Esquina group achieve such an absorbing widescreen sound here, launching off into hitherto unexplored and expansive realms, that its difficult not to get lost in the very sound of the record. Trust me, you'll want to set aside an afternoon for this one...

25. E-DancerVelocity Funk/World Of Deep

KMS1997

Stomping Detroit techno from Kevin Saunderson, a figure who more than any other has had a profound influence on my own musical life. Around this time, there were loads of great records coming out of Detroit, which was enjoying one of its periodic renaissances. For me this was the apex. Velocity Funk is a pounding hardcore banger that seemed to be everywhere at the time (see also Stacey Pullen's remix), but it's World Of Deep on the flip — with that deeply haunting bassline and sheer, rolling waves of psychedelic sound — that really captured my imagination.

24. King Sunny Adé & His African BeatsCheck 'E'

Sunny Alade1981

Nigerian juju from King Sunny Adé on his own Sunny Alade imprint, with both sides of the record encompassed by these great, effortlessly flowing suites. The steel guitar sound heard here stands among my favorite pure sounds ever, gliding through a polyrhythmic web of backing guitars and percussion as they churn beneath those gently chiming bells. His show at The Belly Up a few years back was a real treat, and remains one of the great concert experiences of my life.

23. Gwen GuthriePadlock

Garage1983

Eighties post-disco stretched out and dubbed to abstraction by Larry Levan. This whole mini-album flows together into one long kaleidoscopic mix, the bedrock rhythms of the peerless Compass Point All Stars (Sly Dunbar, Robbie Shakespeare, Darryl Thompson and Wally Badarou) gently tumbling out into space. Gwen always had such a warm presence that she invested in her music and this is no exception.

22. Bobby ByrdBack From The Dead

International Brothers1974

Gritty, apocalyptic funk from the man who mentored a young James Brown and anchored the legendary J.B.'s. The horn fanfare on Back From The Dead is one of the great openings of all time to one of the mightiest funk songs ever laid down, and The Way To Get Down on the flip might even be better.

21. Junior BylesBeat Down Babylon

Dynamic Sounds1972

Marvelous roots reggae LP wherein each and every song is immortal, every note perfectly played and Byles' voice outstanding. Lavishly produced by Lee "Scratch" Perry after his falling out with The Wailers (for anyone wanting to investigate reggae music as thoroughly as it deserves, Lloyd Bradley's indispensable Bass Culture tome is essential reading), you can especially hear his fingerprints all over Coming Home. Everything here shot through with a gentle melodic sway so intoxicating that it's sometimes difficult not to simply let the record play out all day. A front to back masterpiece.

20. A Guy Called Gerald28 Gun Bad Boy

Juice Box1993

Awesome proto-jungle. From his early tenure in 808 State and the Voodoo Ray/Automanikk era to his status as a drum 'n bass innovator, Manchester's Gerald Simpson looms large over British dance music. This album is the culmination of early records on his own Juice Box imprint, with which he essentially forged the idea of jungle out of an interface between his techno past and hardcore present. It's the sound of a restlessly inventive dreamer kicking through the ceiling and into the clouds. To this day, it remains full of possibilities.

19. Sun Ra And His Astro Infinity ArkestraAtlantis

Saturn1969

Space age jazz from this tireless innovator who managed to maintain his Arkestra through the four decades after big band's golden age until his death. The first side features Ra experimenting with the newly issued Hohner Clavinet, while the second is given over to the sidelong wild free jazz excursion Atlantis, sounding like a field recording of that mythical empire's cataclysmic descent into the sea.

18. Adam And The AntsDirk Wears White Sox U.S. Version

Epic1980

Adam Ant was the first artist I ever got into in a big way, and my enthusiasm never waned: a definite case where I love nearly everything he's done. This is the man at his most raw and unvarnished, plying a sort of angular new wave post punk... with a hefty dose of rock 'n roll thrown in for good measure. His early band, an entirely different proposition than the one that would make it big a year later, is one of the great turn-on-a-dime powerhouse units in rock. The U.S. version includes both sides of the phenomenal Zerox/Whip In My Valise, tracks that blew me away when I first heard them as a 14 year old. I can't tell you how happy I was that his recent show at 4th & B leaned so heavily on this material.

17. Talk TalkSpirit Of Eden

Parlophone1988

Embryonic post-rock, from a time when it was still a genre yet to exist. These erstwhile new romantics stretch out far beyond the dancefloor into a state of permanent abyss. It's the omnipresent, swelling Hammond B3 organ that elevates this just above Laughing Stock (perhaps the more obvious choice) for me, the impassioned vocals of Mark Hollis doubly poignant in this context. Possessing a gently smoldering intensity, their music is disarmingly spiritual and direct.

16. Jamie PrincipleWaiting On My Angel

Persona1985

Jamie Principle's improbably early house missive, arriving out of the ether fully-formed on his own Persona imprint. Dreamlike and haunting in all three versions, this is a wholly alien music even within the context of its own scene. It's a tragedy that such an obviously massive talent got such a raw deal, often not even getting credit on the sleeves of his own records. If there's one house artist that I wish had the chance to record an album in the eighties, its Jamie Principle.

15. Miles DavisGet Up With It

Columbia1974

Fusion — in this case the elements fused being earth and fire — an untold substance then molded into these towering, monumental grooves. He Loved Him Madly is a 32-minute dedication to the late Duke Ellington, ambient jazz picking up where In A Silent Way left off, while Calypso Frelimo and Maiysha establish some spooky fourth world voodoo.

14. Roxy MusicFor Your Pleasure

Island1973

Gothic glam rock, with Brian Eno still in the fold, generating his inimitable atmospherics and pushing the whole affair down some thoroughly surreal avenues. Bryan Ferry still sounds alien on each of these haunting numbers, while the band inhabits an island all their own. The Bogus Man and In Every Dream Home A Heartache are particularly obsessive and dreamlike, while Editions Of You never fails to burn the house down.

13. The Jimi Hendrix ExperienceElectric Ladyland

Reprise1968

Hendrix the futurist in experimental mode as The Experience launch into deep space, touching on everything from hard rock (Voodoo Child Slight Return) to space music 1983... A Merman I Should Turn To Be and everything in between (including Gypsy Eyes and Crosstown Traffic, both improbably forward-thinking, wild breakbeat stormers) on this blazing, nomadic double-LP.

12. The BeatlesBeatles For Sale

Parlophone1964

The Beatles at their most vulnerable and downcast, captured here on the cusp of their transition from infectious power pop to beatnik-inflected folk rock into psychedelia and beyond. The seeds of the groups endlessly fertile mid-period are here. Teeming with youthful passion, this record captures the intensity with which one seems to experience everything as a teenager.

11. The MetersThe Meters

Josie1969

Definitive New Orleans funk. The first LP from this group of loose-limbed legends and one of the great bands of all time. Everything here so disciplined and clean that its hard to believe it was recorded in 1969 (the year of Woodstock, endless jamming, etc. etc. etc.). This is a sparse instrumental funk that rocked like hip hop long before it was ever even sampled, existing in a class all its own.

10. The StoogesFun House

Elektra1970

Molten rock 'n roll. Iggy Pop is as ferocious here as he would ever be, while the band try their hardest to drown him out in this densely tangled sonic jungle. Of course you don't just drown out Iggy Pop, but you can still hear him clearing all those sonic vines out of his way in a panic (Let me in!). The sound this nasty bunch of thugs summon here is elemental.

9. NicoletteNow Is Early

Shut Up And Dance1992

A singular collection of proto-jungle torch songs produced by Shut Up And Dance. Sounding out of time in part thanks to their visionary, stripped down production, these skittering avant pop numbers are also shot through with a deep sense of the uncanny — which is entirely down to Nicolette. A truly unique songwriter and vocalist, skewed in the best possible sense, her records and guest spots are all defined by their idiosyncratic brilliance. Now Is Early, her debut, is positively steeped in it. An unheralded masterpiece.

8. KraftwerkComputer World

Kling Klang1981

Exquisitely poised Germans further mechanize their sound and casually invent electro in the process. Home to some of the warmest synths you will ever hear. For me, this beats The Man-Machine by only the slightest margin, those next-level beats the deciding factor. Possibly the most perfect record ever made with machines.

7. Curtis MayfieldRoots

Curtom1971

Visionary soul man's second studio LP, a work of majestic orchestral soul festooned with his sublime guitar work. Astonishingly innovative, full of breathtaking sonic vistas that stretch as far as the eye can see, crawling with the dense stylings of his orchestra and anchored by a backbeat that spells doom. Mayfield is there to guide you through it all, honest and touching as ever.

6. The ByrdsFifth Dimension

Columbia1966

Folk-rockers expand their sound into hitherto unexplored territory, informed by their deep admiration of both John Coltrane and Ravi Shankar, and wind up inventing acid rock in the process. Here, their straight folk numbers are perfected in the shimmering Wild Mountain Thyme and John Riley, while Eight Miles High (Gene Clark's parting gift to the band) sees them soar to unprecedented heights (further explored in I See You and What's Happening?!?!). Even the tracks that didn't make the cut (Psychodrama City, in particular) are phenomenal.

5. TrickyMaxinquaye

4th & Broadway1995

Epochal trip hop debut from Tricky, wherein he rewrites the rule book, cuts it to pieces and then tapes it back together in an order of his choosing. By way of example, Aftermath's casually brilliant, loping groove (co-produced with Mark Stewart) stitches together bits of rhythm from Marvin Gaye and LL Cool J, samples dialogue from Blade Runner and quotes from both David Sylvian and The Rascals. Tricky's murmur anchors the pervading atmosphere of dread as Martina's ghostly wail haunts every corner of the soundscape. Oh yeah... and Hell Is Around The Corner is my favorite song ever.

4. CanFuture Days

United Artists1974

Legendary German band at their most aqueous, their telepathic interplay lifting off into the upper atmosphere. Damo Suzuki, with one foot out the door, sounds too hip to be happy as he casually lays down his most soothing set of vocals on a Can record. Moonshake is an irresistibly slinky groove and the band's greatest pop moment, while Bel Air, the sidelong jam that encompasses the entirety of the second side, is so lush and expansive that it seems capable of supporting its own ecosystem.

3. Sly & The Family StoneThere's A Riot Goin' On

Epic1971

Sly Stone's dusted masterpiece, sounding like his Woodstock-era recordings left out and faded by the sun. Crawling rhythms from ancient beatboxes spiral off into infinity, every edge of the soundscape blunted and out of focus, as timeworn tapes spool out in blurred slow-motion. The tempos drag, the prevailing mood is downbeat and the sound itself is divine.

2. Rhythim Is RhythimThe Beginning

Transmat1990

Derrick May surfing a wave of pure innovation. The greatest techno record ever made bar none. Simultaneously cerebral and driving, it appeals to the mind and body in equal measure. That it's muted reception at the hands of the critics was partly responsible for the man's untimely retirement is a shame. The Beginning itself might be the undeniable centerpiece, but from the dazzling technoid disco of Drama to the geometric precision of Emanon and Salsa Life's tuff versioning of Strings, every track is sublime.

1. Big Audio DynamiteMegatop Phoenix

Columbia1989

Number One. My favorite record of all time, no question. Always drawn to Contact, the record's big single, I was blown away when I finally tracked down a copy of the full album — a sonic utopia where pop music meets the rave. This is where Mick Jones' fascination with sampladelia is fully absorbed into his immortal knack for penning a tune, resulting in a true embarrassment of riches. Someday I'll write a book about this record.